Money Crimes with Nicole Lapin - True Crime This Week: Prison Breaks

Episode Date: November 9, 2025

This week on True Crime This Week, host Vanessa Richardson explores two of history’s most legendary escape artists who turned their jailbreaks into folklore.First, meet Jack Sheppard, the 18th-century London thief who outsmarted authorities time and again with four daring escapes from England’s toughest prisons — before his death turned him into a working-class hero.Then, travel to colonial Australia to follow Joseph Bolitho “Moondyne” Joe Johns, a convict whose cunning and persistence made him the most famous prison escapee in Australian history. From digging through cell walls to vanishing into the outback, Joe became a national icon for defying authority and refusing to give up.From the back alleys of London to the wilds of Western Australia, these stories prove that some legends are born behind bars. To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hi, Crime House community. It's Vanessa Richardson. And if you love digging into the most gripping true crime stories, then you need to listen to another Crime House original, Crimes of, with Sabrina Deanna Roga and Corinne Vienne. Crimes of is a weekly series that explores a new theme each season from crimes of paranormal, unsolved murders, mysterious disappearances, and more. Sabrina and Corinne have been covering the true stories behind Hollywood's most iconic horror. villains, and this month, they'll be diving into the paranormal. Listen to Crimes of every Tuesday on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, or wherever you listen to podcasts. This is Crime House. This week in crime history, we're covering the cases of two famous British escape artists. On November 16th, 1724, a 22-year-old English thief named Jack Shepard was executed

after four successful escapes from some of London's most notorious prisons. One hundred and twenty-four years later, in 1848, another 22-year-old named Joseph Boliatho Johns, better known as Mundine Joe, was arrested in England. Authorities sent him into a penal colony in Australia to serve his sentence, where he would eventually become a folk hero for his many successful prison breaks. Welcome to True Crime This Week, part of Crime House Daily.

I'm Vanessa Richardson. Every Sunday, we'll be revisiting notorious crimes from the coming week in history, From serial killers to mysterious disappearances or murders, every episode will explore stories that share a common theme. Each week will cover two stories, one further in the past and one more rooted in the present. Here at Crime House, we know none of this would be possible without you, our community. Please support us by rating, reviewing, and following, Crime House Daily, wherever you get your podcasts. And for ad-free and early access to Crime House Daily, plus,

exciting bonus content, subscribe to Crime House Plus on Apple Podcasts. This week's theme is prison breaks. We'll start off with the story of Jack Shepard. Although his criminal career only lasted two years, Jack became beloved by England's working class for his many daring escapes from jail. When he was executed in 1724, hundreds of thousands of fans attended his hanging. Then we'll look ahead to 1848. when escape artist Moondyne Joe was first arrested in England.

Joe was shipped out to Australia to serve out his sentence where he spent the next 23 years breaking out of prison and leading police on long chases through the Australian bush. The stories of these two escape artists coming up. With Instacart, you get groceries that over-deliver, So you can over-share your preferences. Want russet potatoes with no brown spots? You got it.

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Service fees, exclusions, and terms apply. On November 16th, 1724, a wagon left London's Newgate prison and made its way through the streets to the Tyburn gallows at the edge of Hyde Park. The wagon was carrying a single inmate. His name was Jack Shepard, and although he was only 22 years old and five feet four inches tall, security around the wagon was tight. Jack was being escorted by the city marshal and a group of guards on horseback armed with javelets. The authorities weren't taking any chances. Jack had already given police the slip multiple times. Just that morning, guards caught him with a penknife that he'd planned to use to cut off his restraints. They stopped him before he could get free, but Jack also had a lot of friends in the

streets who might try to help him avoid his fate. That day, there were thousands of people surrounding the wagon, because Jack Shepard, the man they saw as a hero, was about to be executed. Officials would later estimate that 200,000 Londoners, nearly one-third of the city's population at the time, had turned out to show their support. There were even merchants selling copies of Jack's autobiography, which he dictated to friends in prison.

It was proof that no matter what happened at the gallows, the story of his many thefts and daring escapes would live on. But this time, Jack Shepard wouldn't make an exciting getaway. When they reached the gallows, the wagon drove up directly underneath the hanging noose. The crowd watched in silence as the executioner slipped it over Jack's head and tightened it around his neck. Then the signal was given and the wagon driver walked his horses away. Jack's feet slipped off the back of the wagon until he was hanging. Because of how little he weighed, Jack's neck didn't break when his feet left the wagon.

Instead, his hundreds of thousands of fans watched him dangle for 15 minutes as he slowly suffocated. It was a gruesome ending for a common thief. But that was the point. Over the past two years, the young man had become celebrated for his crimes and frequent jail breaks. The government needed to make an example of Jack Shepard. Otherwise, London's lower classes might be inspired by his life story. Jack Shepard was born on March 4th, 1702, in an East London slum known as Spittlefields. It was the kind of place where poverty, crime, and sickness ran rampant.

Infant mortality rates were so high that Jack was baptized the day after he was born because his parents weren't sure how long he'd live. Fortunately, Jack held on, but his father, a carpenter, wasn't as lucky and died while Jack was still very young. This left Jack's mother to provide for Jack and his two siblings. To try and bring in some money, Jack's mother arranged for him to follow in his father's footsteps and go work for a chairmaker when he was just six years old. After four years, Jack moved on and became a shop boy for a cloth wholesaler named William Kneebone. William took Jack under his wing and taught the young boy how to read and write.

It seemed like Jack was grateful for his mentorship, but by the time he was a little bit of his 15, he was ready to pursue his own career. That's when Jack signed a seven-year contract to be an apprentice to a local carpenter. All Jack had to do was keep his head down and do as he was told, and at the end of the contract, he'd be able to start his own business with the skills he'd learned. And for the first five years, that was what he did. Jack was a hard worker and well-liked by his co-workers for his quick-witted sense of humor. By all accounts, he was on track to become a model citizen, but then he started hanging out at the Black Lion. The Black Lion was a pub on nearby Drury Lane that was popular with local apprentices,

but it was also a major hangout for drunks, criminals, and other people who'd been shunned by polite society. At some point, Jack became a regular at the Black Lion, and that's where he met another customer, a sex worker named Elizabeth Lyon. Elizabeth was daring and exciting, and her rule-breaking attitude seemed to awaken something in Jack. Soon, they were dating, and with Elizabeth by his side, Jack started to change. He developed a taste for strong liquor and began spending almost all his time at the Black Lion. His carpentry work fell by the wayside, and he started getting into arguments with his boss. It was only a matter of time until Jack started exploring some new career opportunities, inspired by his wayside,

his fellow patrons at the Black Lion. In the spring of 1723, 21-year-old Jack committed his first burglary. While running an errand for his boss at a local tavern, he swiped a pair of silver spoons, which he later sold to buy alcohol. Nobody noticed, so Jack continued thieving as a side hustle, stealing whatever he could from houses he visited for his carpentry work. By August, Jack realized that he'd found his true calling and formally quit his carpentry apprenticeship. Finally free to pursue his own dreams, Jack moved out of his boss's house where he'd been living and moved in with Elizabeth instead. Things were going well for the two of them, but before long, Elizabeth landed in jail for prostitution. When Jack found out, he was livid.

He stormed over to the prison, knocked out the guard, broke open the door, and helped her, escape. After that daring escape, the pair realized what a good team they were and decided to go into business together as criminals. Jack spent the next several months burglarizing homes and shops around London, sometimes with Elizabeth's help, he'd bring his stolen goods to the Black Lion, where he'd sell them to a fence, a shady merchant who would buy the stolen products and resell them on the street. Jack and Elizabeth were making so much money from the operation that soon Jack brought his older brother, Tom, into the fold. But Jack should have listened to the old saying, don't work with family. On February 5th, 1724, Jack, Tom, and Elizabeth broke into a linen shop in central London

and stole 55 pounds worth of cloth. The burglary went off without a hitch. But in April, police caught Tom carrying the stolen goods on his way to fence them. Tom had already been arrested for a petty offense the previous year and was terrified of doing hard time, so he ratted out his brother and Elizabeth in exchange for a lighter sentence. Soon, a warrant was put out for Jack and Elizabeth's arrest. When word hit the street that Jack was wanted for burglary, one of his fellow criminals sensed an opportunity. A fence Jack worked with invited him for a drink at a local pub, then tipped off the police.

The fence got a 40-pound reward, and Jack was hauled off to a small jail called St. Giles' Roundhouse to await further questioning. But he wouldn't be there for long. That night, Jack's carpentry training came in handy. He noticed the timbers on the ceiling of his cell were old and weak. So he ripped the sheets off his bed and managed to climb up and smash right through the ceiling. Then he climbed out and onto the roof where he used his knotted bed sheets to safely land on the street below. After that, Jack slipped into a crowd of people and disappeared. Jack's brief stay in jail didn't deter him from a life of crime.

If anything, his successful escape emboldened him. The next month, on May 19, 1724, he was arrested for pickpocketing and locked up in what was known as the new prison in the Clarkinwell neighborhood. On his second day there, Elizabeth came to visit him. It wasn't the best move. After all, she was still wanted for the linen shop burglary. Jail officials recognized her, and soon she was locked up in the same cell as Jack.

Fortunately, Jack still had some friends he could trust on the outside. Several days later, Jack and Elizabeth's accomplices came to visit and slipped them a small saw. That night, Jack cut through their leg irons, then sawed through the heavy bars across their window. Just like his previous escape, he turned their bed sheets and extra clothes into a long rope, which he and Elizabeth used to climb out of the window and 25 feet down the side of the building. But they weren't out of the woods yet. When their feet touched the ground, Jack and Elizabeth realized they were in the fenced-in yard of another jail next door.

Thinking quickly, Jack and Elizabeth used the locks and bolts of the prison gate as footholds to climb up and over the 22-foot wall, then escape down the dark streets on the other side. Jack's two daring prison breaks, one of them with his girlfriend in tow, made him a popular man among criminals and working people. He was a scrappy thief from the lower class, sticking it to the authorities by busting out of every jail they put him in. And this newfound fame came with new opportunities. Not long after his second escape, Jack was contacted by an underworld kingpin named Jonathan Wilde. Jonathan was so well connected that he'd often organize a burglary, purchased the stolen goods, then sell the items

back to the original owner at an even higher price. Jonathan wanted Jack to go work for him. But Jack turned him down. He wanted to stay independent, and he already had his next burglary target picked out. On July 12th, weeks after his escape from the new prison, Jack broke into the home of William Kneebone, the very man who'd taught him how to read and write. Jack repaid this kindness by stealing 50 pounds worth of goods from his former employer's house. After the robbery, Jack went to one of his fences to sell the stolen products. He had no idea that the fence worked for Jonathan Wilde, and that Jonathan Wilde was operating on both sides of the law.

It turned out that Jonathan wasn't just a criminal. He was also a vigilante bounty hunter. He helped police and everyday citizens tracked down tough-to-find criminals for a price, Playing both sides had its advantages. Jonathan would often get his competitors arrested, then take over their criminal enterprises. So when Jack's latest victim, Mr. Kneebone, went to Jonathan to catch the man who'd burglarized his home, Jonathan was more than happy to put another one of his rivals in jail. Jonathan knew that Jack was behind the burglary.

Now all he had to do was find him, and he knew just the way to do it, by targeting. the person Jack cared about most Elizabeth Lyon. You know what's better than the one big thing? Two big things. Exactly. The new iPhone 17 Pro on TELUS's five-year rate plan price lock. Yep, it's the most powerful iPhone ever, plus more peace of mind with your bill over five years.

This is big. Get the new iPhone 17 Pro at TELUSD. dot com slash iPhone 17 pro on select plans conditions and exclusions apply at Desjardin we speak business we speak startup funding and comprehensive game plans we've mastered made to measure growth and expansion advice and we can talk your ear off about transferring your business when the time comes because at Desjardin business we speak the same language you do business so join the more than 400,000 Canadian entrepreneurs who already count on us and contact Desjardin today. We'd love to talk. Business. In 1724, London thief Jack Shepard was becoming a sensation in the criminal underworld for his brazen robberies and multiple daring escapes from prison. But in July, Jack got on the bad side of a local criminal kingpin named Jonathan Wilde. After Jack burglarized his former boss, William kneebone, the business owner contacted Jonathan to find the person responsible for robbing his

shop. Jonathan was happy to help, and he knew exactly how to find his target. On July 22, Jonathan tracked down Jack's girlfriend, Elizabeth Lyon, and invited her to a local pub. Elizabeth didn't know Jonathan was after her boyfriend, so she was perfectly happy to chat as Jonathan bought her drink after drink. By the time Jonathan asked about Jack's recent burglary, Elizabeth was drunk enough to let slip that Jack was hiding out at a friend's house on the other side of town. The following day, Jonathan sent one of his thugs to the house to capture Jack and take him into custody for the third time. Jack's trial began on August 12th, and both Jonathan Wilde and one of Jack's fences testified against him. William Kneebone even took the stand and asked his former employee how he could be so ungrateful.

Jack acknowledged that it had been wrong to rob him, but instead he was lured into a life of crime by bad influences. In particular, he singled out Elizabeth Lyon, who he accused of introducing him to alcohol and the vices of the criminal underworld. Those bad influences had betrayed Jack at every turn. His girlfriend had ratted him out, and his fellow criminals testified against him, and things only got worse from there. Based on Jack's extensive criminal record and previous escapes, the judge sentenced him to die by hanging. His execution was scheduled for September 4th. Jack spent the rest of August in a cell deep inside Newgate prison. The conditions there were awful, even by.

the standards of the time, there was an open sewer in the middle of the prison yard. The entire complex was infested with rats, cockroaches and lice, and prisoners screamed all day and night. More than one inmate compared Newgate Prison to hell. But Newgate was also understaffed, and the limited number of guards on duty couldn't be everywhere at once. So, on August 30th, just a few days before Jack's scheduled execution, no one noticed when a pair of visitors went over to his cell. Apparently, Elizabeth felt guilty for her role in Jack's re-arrest, because that day, she and another sex worker brought Jack some hand tools,

along with a set of women's clothing. Elizabeth discreetly passed the gifts into his cell, then she and her friend kept the guards distracted, while Jack saw through his cell door. At this point, Jack would normally use the clothing to form a makeshift rope. Instead, he put on the dress that Elizabeth brought him. Then the three of them strolled past the unsuspecting guards and out of the prison gates. Jack Shepard was a free man again, but even though he appreciated Elizabeth's help, it wasn't

enough to salvage their relationship. They broke up not long after, and when she was later arrested for helping him escape, he didn't lift a finger to set her free. In the days after he walked out of Newgate in a dress, London newspapers were full of breathless accounts of Jack's latest escape. Hoping to avoid being recognized by his growing fan base, Jack disguised himself as a butcher and left the city to stay with friends in the English countryside. He'd planned to stay there until the excitement over his latest escape died down, but after just three days, he began to miss the city life and returned to London in early September. However,

Jack's new celebrity status worked against him. Shortly after he arrived back in the city, a milkman recognized him and began spreading the word that Jack had returned. Local shopkeepers even posted guards outside their businesses. But that wasn't enough to stop Jack from robbing a watchmaker's shop on Fleet Street, where he got away with three. watches. He sold one of them, used the money to get good and drunk, then went to settle scores with the milkman. When Jack found him, he cornered him and dumped a few bottles of milk on the man's head. Jack wasn't keeping a low profile, and it didn't take long for the law to catch up with him. In the early morning hours of September 9th, a posse led by guards from

Newgate Prison, found Jack in the London suburb of Finchley Common, arrested him. him and hauled him back to the prison. This time, the staff at Newgate wasn't taking any chances. Jack was locked up in a cell known as the castle at the center of the complex, where he was handcuffed and shackled in a pair of leg irons that were bolted to the floor. Meanwhile, outside the jailhouse, the city was a buzz with the news of Jack's recapture. London newspapers covered him more than any other subject, and his story was about to get even more interesting. On October 9th, a high-profile visitor entered the jail complex. It was none other than Jonathan Wilde, Jack's rival crime lord, who played both sides of the law. Jonathan wasn't there

to see Jack, though. He was in a courtroom in another wing, testifying against one of his former colleagues. At some point during the hearing, the man on trial, jumped up and attacked Jonathan with a knife. He slit Jonathan's throat, badly wounding him. All the inmates in the jail knew Jonathan. Some loved him. Others hated him. So when word of the attack quickly spread throughout the jailhouse, fights erupted throughout. Prison guards could barely control everyone, which meant Jack was unsupervised. Weeks earlier, he'd found an old nail on the floor of his cell, which he'd hidden a way to use in a moment like this. With the nail clenched in his teeth, Jack picked the locks on his handcuffs, then managed to break the chain links

attaching his leg irons to the floor. He wasn't able to get free of his leg irons completely, but he didn't let that stop him. There was one way out of Jack's cell besides the door, a chimney that led straight up through the ceiling. So on October 15th, Jack climbed up it, and broke through a weak section of wall and into a vacant cell upstairs. Then he used scrap metal from his broken chains to wrench open the lock on the door, followed by the locks and bolts on five other doors and the empty hallways outside. He was able to make it to the roof of the prison, but he knew he wouldn't be able to survive the two-story drop to the ground below.

So Jack retraced his steps all the way back to his cell, grabbed his bedsheets and returned to the roof. At that point, he used his old trick and fashioned them into a rope to climb down to freedom. And with that, Jack Shepard's fourth prison break was complete. Jack's latest escape was front page news. To avoid being recognized in the middle of the media frenzy, Jack dressed in rags to disguise himself as a beggar. There was one problem, though.

He was still trapped in the prison's leg irons. It took him two days before he finally found a set of tools he could use to cut through the chains. Jack spent the next few weeks hiding out with a pair of sex workers he knew. It would have made sense to leave the city at this point, but Jack had different priorities. On October 29th, he broke into a pawn shop, stole some fancy clothes, a wig, and a bunch of cash, and jewels. For the next few days, Jack dressed as a gentleman and lived. lived a gentleman's life. With his two friends in tow, he went on a tour of his favorite pubs, getting drunker and drunker with each new stop, and drawing plenty of attention along

the way. Finally, in the early morning hours of November 1st, 1724, police interrupted Jack's impromptu pub crawl. He was so drunk that he barely put up a fight as they returned him to his old cell at Newgate Prison. This time around, prison staff did everything they could to keep Jack put, including weighing him down with over 300 pounds of chains and irons. Of course, this only made Jack more of a local celebrity. By that point, he was so famous that over a thousand people came to visit him, paying his jailers four shillings, the equivalent of about $30 today, to ask Jack questions. Despite his circumstances, Jack was a cheerful prisoner who enjoyed chatting with his visitors. Unsurprisingly, some of them tried to help him escape.

At least one person smuggled a file to him hidden inside a Bible, followed by a chisel a few days later. Guards found and confiscated these tools before Jack could put them to use. But knowing Jack, time was of the essence. The authorities were eager to make an example of him before he could escape a again. On November 16th, 1724, Jack was loaded into a wagon under heavy guard for the two-mile journey to the gallows at Tyburn. The streets were so packed with his fans that it took two hours to reach their destination. Plenty of time for Jack to formulate his final escape plan. He had allies in the crowd who'd promised to take his body to a friendly doctor once it had been cut down

from the noose. They thought the physician might be able to resurrect him with warm blankets and wine. When he finally reached Tyburn, an executioner slipped a noose around Jack's neck. Instead of any famous last words, he simply handed the hangman a pamphlet in which he'd written his autobiography. With that, Jack was hung. He spent the next 15 minutes, slowly suffocating. When his body was cut down from the rope, a crowd of fans rushed forward to examine it. They didn't know about Jack's plan, and in their eagerness to get one last look, they trampled his body. By the time the doctors were able to get to him, they decided that no amount of wine and warm blankets could heal the damage. But even though his attempted resurrection failed, Jack Shepard lives on to this day as a folk hero, a working class.

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there's no going back. I'm Lester Holt, and this is The Last Appeal. My new podcast from Dateline. Listen now. 124 years after Jack Shepard's final escape, another repeat offender became a working-class hero. On November 15, 1848, Joseph Blytho-Johns was arrested in Wales

for stealing food from a farmhouse. This petty crime came with a steep prison sentence. But just like Jack Shepard, Joseph was determined to break free. In the early morning hours of November 15th, a police constable stopped two men walking along a country road outside the Welsh village of Monmouth in the United Kingdom. Both men were carrying bags over their shoulders, and they seemed nervous when the officers started asking,

questions. The constable was suspicious, so he searched the men's bags. Inside, he found several wheels of cheese, three loaves of bread, two pieces of bacon, a shoulder of mutton, and a lump of beef fat. It turned out these same items had been reported missing from a house in a nearby town a day earlier. The constable was certain the two men he'd stopped were responsible and took them into custody on the spot. One of the men was named William Cross, a day laborer with a prior conviction. The other was a 22-year-old named Joseph Boliatho Johns, better known today as Moondine Joe. Joe was a working-class Welshman. His father had been a blacksmith, and as an adult, Joe worked as a minor. He wasn't a career criminal by any means. This

burglary was actually his first offense, but that didn't earn him any sympathy from the British justice system. A judge sentenced both men to 10 years in prison to be served at the British penal colony in Western Australia. Nobody knows what happened to Joe's accomplice, William Cross, but over the next 23 years, Mundine Joe would become an Australian icon. At the time, Britain's colonies in Western Australia were experiencing a severe labor shortage that threatened to destroy their local economies, so they petitioned Queen Victoria to send them convicts to fill necessary jobs. Soon, ships full of British inmates began arriving at the port in Fremantle just outside Perth. Moondyne Joe spent four years in a Welsh prison before being shipped to Fremantle in April of 1853.

During his time at that Welsh jail, Joe had been a model prisoner. So when he stepped off the boat in Australia, officials rewarded him with a ticket of leave. This was a form of probation. So-called ticket of leave men didn't have to live in the prison. Instead, they were allowed to find room and board an especially assigned district of the colony. There, they were free to seek any job they wanted, earn money, buy property, and even bring their families over from Britain for the remainder of their sentence. But they weren't allowed to carry guns or board a boat without permission,

and if they committed any crime, no matter how small, they could be sent straight to prison without a trial. Joe took his ticket of leave and settled in the hills outside Fremantle in a region that Aboriginal peoples, who are native to Australia, called Moondine. There, he set up a camp with a few brush huts and made a living as a trapper, catching animals that came to drink from nearby streams and springs. It wasn't an easy life, but Joe made the best of it and continued to live in Moondyne even after completing his sentence.

But after eight years in Australia, Joe had another run-in with the law. In early August, 1861, 35-year-old Joe found an unbranded horse wandering free near his camp. So he captured it, then branded it with his own mark. It wasn't the smartest move. This was the 19th century equivalent of finding an unlocked parked car on your street and driving away with it. By law, any unmarked horses were supposed to be taken to the authorities so they could be reunited with their owners. By putting his own brand on a horse that wasn't his, Joe became a horse thief. Somehow, police learned what Joe had done, and on August 6th, they found him riding the horse

and arrested him. The animal was confiscated, and Joe was locked up at a prison in the nearby town of Tudj. The jail was tiny and old with just three cells, and the very next day, the guard on duty came back to find Joe's cell empty. Not only that, but the horse, which had been tied up outside was missing. So was a brand new saddle and bridle belonging to the police department. After talking to the other inmates, police learned that Joe managed to get his hands on a knife, which he used to remove the screws holding the lock on his door. Once he was free, Joe had taken the police saddle, hopped on his stolen horse, and rode away. The authorities followed Joe's trail and caught up with him at a sawmill outside town. Joe was arrested, but police didn't

find any sign of the stolen horse. Still, they sent Joe back to the same jail where he was carefully watched by two guards. While they waited to send Joe back to Perth for his trial, police searched the hills for Joe's stolen horse. In late August, they finally found it outside an aboriginal camp. The horse had been shot in the head. and the patch of skin where Joe had branded it had been cut off. Police figured this was Joe's handiwork, and while it was unfortunate for the horse, the removal of the brand meant the authorities had no evidence

when Joe went on trial a few weeks later. And so, instead of being charged with horse theft, which carried a 10-year sentence, he was just charged with jailbreaking, which only had a three-year sentence. Joe spent a little over two years locked up at Fremantle Prison before being released in June of 1864 for good behavior. Even though there were multiple prison breaks from Fremantle during that time,

Joe didn't participate. He just kept his head down and served his time. After his release, Joe moved to the small town of Kelmscott, outside of Perth, where he found work as a farmhand on a cattle ranch. He worked there for several of the same. uneventful months, but in early 1865, he got into trouble again. On March 28th, the owner of the ranch, Henry Martin, notified police that Joe had killed and eaten one of his cattle. Joe insisted he was innocent. He even showed the authorities a note that was supposedly written by Mr. Martin's

wife. The letter clearly said that Joe was allowed to slaughter one of the cows. However, Mrs. Martin denied writing the note, and despite Joe's protests, he was sentenced to 10 more years of hard labor in Fremantle prison. Previously, Joe had been willing to serve his time as a model prisoner, but now that he'd been locked up for a crime he swore he didn't commit, he was done playing nice. After several months in jail, Joe was selected to join a work crew doing hard labor near the town of Canning Flats. This was the perfect opportunity. Joe knew the area well, and he had friends living nearby. So he formed a plan. On November 1st, after just a week working in the area, Joe and several of his fellow prisoners snuck away from camp in the middle of the night

and disappeared into the bush. The following morning, guards discovered that the prisoners were missing. The manhunt was on, but finding Joe wouldn't be so easy. Joe was quite the outdoorsman, a skill he'd learned during his years at Moondyne. He knew how to live off the land and how to throw the police off his scent. The authorities spent weeks combing the wilderness for the escapees, occasionally picking up tips from residents who'd seen them. One rancher had run into the group and reported that Joe had three days' worth of food and a tomahawk for self-examon. defense. A week later, another man reported seeing Joe and his fellow inmates carrying guns they must have stolen along the way. Finally, after a grueling month-long manhunt,

police caught up with Joe and his accomplices at a campsite outside the small town of York. They were roughly 150 miles away from where they'd escaped. The men were asleep when police arrived and didn't get a chance to reach for their weapons before they were placed under arrest. After a long and exhausting march back to Perth, Joe was thrown back in Fremantle prison, with another year added to his sentence for the jailbreak. His guards knew Joe had a reputation as an escape artist, so they had him shackled in leg irons to make sure he didn't get away again. But Moondine Joe was determined to break free,

and it would take a lot more than a set of iron chains to keep him, behind bars. That's annoying. What? You're a muffler. You don't hear it? Oh, I don't even notice it. I usually drown it out with the radio.

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Australian prison escapee, Joseph Bolitho, better known as Moondyne Joe, was recaptured after a month-long manhunt. Back at Fremantle Prison, Joe had another year added to his sentence and was locked up in leg irons to keep him from escaping again. But Joe insisted the cattle rustling charges against him were false. He refused to spend 10 years behind bars for a crime he didn't commit, and he was willing to do anything to get out. Seven months after he was recaptured, in July of 1866, guards caught Joe trying to saw through the lock in his door with a small file he'd somehow smuggled into his cell.

His tools were confiscated, and another six months were added to his sentence. But this only made Joe more determined. 17 days later, on the morning of August 8, 1866, prison guards discovered that Joe's cell, was empty. As they scoured the grounds, they found tracks in the dirt outside his cell. They couldn't figure out how he'd gotten out, but it looked like he'd climbed over one of the walls to do so, still wearing his leg irons. We're still not sure how he did it either, but we know that once he landed on the other side of the prison wall, Joe ran to a tool shed at a nearby construction site. He broke in and stole a hammer and chisel, which he used to break free from

his leg irons. Then he crossed a nearby river and escaped into the wilderness. Police, aided by Aboriginal trackers, set out in pursuit once again. But Joe had intentionally timed his escape to line up with Australia's rainy season, so frequent downpours washed away his tracks. He also tied animal skins around his shoes to mask his footprints. And not long after he got free, he joined up with three fellow inmates. who'd also recently escaped from a nearby jail. The night after Joe's escape, an elderly farmer answered a knock at his door to find Moondyne Joe and three fellow convicts on his doorstep.

The four men barged inside and shoved the farmer down onto his bed, then began ransacking the house for supplies. The men took a couple guns, some ammunition, and whatever food they could get their hands on, then left just as quickly as they'd arrived. There was no time to dawdle. Joe knew where he was going, and he had a lot of ground to cover. Joe and his gang led police on a wild goose chase

all over Western Australia. There were a few close calls. More than once, the police found Joe's campsites just hours after they'd left. Eventually, one of Joe's accomplices fell behind and was arrested, but he refused to provide any details. details about his fellow escapees. Still, Joan knew that he and his three friends couldn't hide from

the police forever, so he decided to hike to South Australia, a different colony with its own justice system, where the cops chasing him didn't have jurisdiction. It was a clever plan, but it would require them to travel over a thousand miles of wilderness and desert. That was a daunting task, even for an experienced outdoorsman like Joe, and they'd need supplies. On the night of September 5th, Joe and his two remaining accomplices broke into a general store in the town of Tudj, about 50 miles away from Perth. There, they stole guns, boots, and a large amount of food. Then they set out into the desert, heading for South Australia. Joe knew that an English explorer named Charles Hunt was surveying the desert at the time, digging wells as he

went. So Joe and his men followed Hunt's path, using his wells to stock up on water. For most of September, Joe and his friends trekked through the wilderness on foot and on horseback. At first, police struggled to follow his trail, but eventually, reports began to trickle in from travelers who'd spotted Joe on the road. Based on where he'd been cited, police realized. Police realized, that Joe was following Charles Hunt's trail. This narrowed down the search and made it easier for them to catch up. On September 29, 1866, after a month on the run, police surprised Joe and his two accomplices as they rested in the shade near one of Hunt's Wells, about 200 miles east of Fremantle Prison.

They still had 700 miles to go until they got to the border of South Australia, and it looked like they weren't going to make it. One of Joe's friends drew his gun, but the police fired first, hitting him in the arm. After that, Joe and the other convict surrendered without a fight. It took over a week and a team of 14 police officers to return Joe and his two fellow escapees to Fremantle Prison. By the time they got there on October 9th,

newspapers were filled with exciting accounts of Joe's latest escape, and jokes about the official in charge of overseeing convicts George Hampton. With his reputation on the line, Warden Hampton cracked down hard on 40-year-old Moondine Joe. He personally oversaw the construction of a brand-new escape-proof cell just for Joe. The cell's stone walls were lined with thick wooden railroad ties, with thousands of nails driven through them, to keep Joe in the center of the cell, at all times. The one window was covered by a thick iron grate. There was no bed, and Joe was only fed a diet of bread and water. In addition to the new security measures, Joe had five

years of hard labor added to his sentence. Rather than let him leave the prison with an inmate work crew, the warden ordered that boulders be brought into the prison yard for Joe to break up with a pickaxe. No other prisoners were allowed within 60 feet of him, while he did his back-breaking, pointless busy work, and an armed guard watched him at all times. Warden Hampton was so confident in the security of these new arrangements that he smugly told Joe in front of witnesses that if he managed to escape again, he'd be given a full pardon.

At the time, Australian prison wardens had the authority to grant pardons to anyone for any reason, but this warden would come to regret making that promise to Moondyne Joe. For the next five months, Joe spent hours every day standing in the same corner of the prison yard, smashing rocks with a pickaxe. Occasionally, prison staff would come and take away the broken rocks. But over time, the pile of shards grew and grew until it was waist-high, blocking the guard's view of Joe's lower torso. At some point, Joe realized he could use this to his advantage.

Every so often, when his guard wasn't looking, he'd stop breaking rocks and swing his pickaxe at the wall behind him a couple of times. The pile of broken rocks blocked the growing hole he was making in the prison wall. It's not clear how long Joe was at it, but on March 7, 1867, six months into his new sentence, Joe's careful work paid off. While the guard was distracted, Joe broke out of his leg irons with his pickaxe, then wriggled through the small hole he'd cut in the wall, and disappeared for the fourth time. Guards discovered he was missing around 5 p.m.

When Warden Hampton found out, he was furious. Within minutes, the police and local military were called up to look for Joe. For the first time in the history of Western Australia, search parties were ordered to bring the escapee back dead or alive. The warden had no intention of being forced to fulfill his promise of a pardon. Despite the massive police mobilization, investigators couldn't find any trace of Moondine Joe. For weeks, posseys searched the town and the surrounding wilderness, but eventually, police resources had to be diverted. Inmates at Fremantle Prison had been inspired by Joe's escape and staged multiple breakouts in the weeks to come. Most of these escapees were eventually caught,

but the multiple manhunts were expensive, time-consuming, and exhausting. They also made Warden Hampton look very bad, so much so that he retired and went back to England. By the time all the excitement of the other prison breaks died down, Hampton was gone, and Joe had been forgotten. For the next two years, Joe lived in the wilderness around Perth. He made use of his trapping skills to catch small animals, but he also took donations from sympathetic locals who recognized and supported him. He stayed out of sight and didn't cause any trouble. Joe probably could have stayed on the run for the rest of his life, But an unbelievably unlucky coincidence brought him back into contact with the authorities. On February 25, 1869, Joe broke into a vineyard on the outskirts of Perth looking to steal some wine.

While Joe was breaking into the wine cellar, the owner was at a nearby river, helping the local police with a search and rescue operation. As the search wound down, the owner invited a few police officers back. to his vineyard for a glass of wine. Unfortunately for Joe, the owner and his cop friends walked into the wine cellar right as he was trying to steal one of the casks of wine. For the final time, Moondine Joe had been caught. Joe was returned to his cell at Fremantle Prison, where several more years were added to his sentence. He was held in solitary confinement, and guards visited every half hour to make sure he hadn't escaped. After being locked away for two more years, Joe made one last bid for freedom. But this time, he didn't try to pick any locks or climb any walls. He just

spoke to the warden. Joe reminded the new warden, Henry Wakeford, that his predecessor had promised to pardon Joe if he was able to escape from his newly constructed cell. Joe pointed out that he had, escaped and asked to receive the pardon he'd been promised. It turned out Warden Wakeford was more forgiving than Hampton. The warden spoke to witnesses to confirm what Joe said. Wakeford also thought about the fact that Joe was a nonviolent offender, and after careful consideration, he decided that keeping Joe locked up was more trouble than it was worth. In May of 1871, At the age of 45, Moondyne Joe walked out of the prison gates, a free man. And from then on, he stayed on the right side of the law, mostly.

In 1879, he married a young widow, Louisa, and spent the rest of his life working as a boat builder, a logger, and a gold prospector. In 1893, Louisa passed away at the age of 40. Her death took a heavy toll on Joe's health. In 1900, when he was 74, he died in the Fremantle Lunatic Asylum. But to this day, his legend lives on in the history and culture of Western Australia, including the annual Moondyne Festival, which celebrates his escapades. Looking back at this week in crime history, we can see the power of doing what seems like an impossible. task, escaping from prison. Despite the British government's best efforts, the stories of

Jack Shepard's adventurous jail breaks live on. The same goes for Moondyne Joe. His refusal to serve time for a crime he swore he didn't commit made him a legendary figure in Australia and beyond. It's a powerful reminder that those who are willing to stand up to authority can be fondly remembered in the history books. Thanks so much for listening. I'm Vanessa Richardson, and this is True Crime This Week, part of Crime House Daily.

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