MrBallen Podcast: Strange, Dark & Mysterious Stories - Shark Vomit (PODCAST EXCLUSIVE EPISODE)

Episode Date: December 5, 2022

In 1935, guests at an aquarium in Sydney, Australia, were watching a huge tiger shark swim around a tank when suddenly the shark started acting strange. It began violently shaking and swimming around as fast as it could, periodically bumping hard into the walls. And then, finally it just stopped and slowly sank to the bottom of the pool. What the shark did next horrified the onlookers and sent many of them running from the building to call the police. But, when police arrived, they were less interested in the shark, and more interested in what was now floating on top of the water in the shark tank….For 100s more stories like this one, check out our main YouTube channel just called "MrBallen" -- https://www.youtube.com/c/MrBallenIf you want to reach out to me, contact me on Instagram, Twitter or any other major social media platform, my username on all of them is @MrBallenSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Hey Prime members, you can binge eight new episodes of the Mr. Ballin podcast one month early and all episodes ad-free on Amazon Music. Download the Amazon Music app today. In 1935, guests at a Sydney, Australia aquarium were watching a tiger shark swimming around this really fast circles. It would bump into the walls. And then suddenly the shark just stopped and sank to the bottom of the tank. What the shark did next was so horrifying, it sent the onlookers running out of the building to call the police. When the police came into the aquarium, they were less interested in the shark and more interested in what was now floating at the top of the water

in the shark's tank. This story is easily one of the strangest stories we have ever covered on this channel, so make sure you stick around to the end. But before we get into that story, if you're a fan of the Strange, Dark, and Mysterious Delivered in Story format, then you've come to the right podcast because that's all we do and we upload twice a week, once on Monday and once on Thursday. So if that's of interest to you, the next time the Amazon Music Follow button invites you over to their house for dinner, bring your trash with you and secretly hide it around their home. Okay, let's get into today's story. Hello, I am Alice Levine and I am one of the hosts of Wondery's podcast British Scandal.

been and I am one of the hosts of Wondery's podcast British Scandal. On our latest series, The Race to Ruin, we tell the story of a British man who took part in the first ever round the world sailing race. Good on him, I hear you say. But there is a problem, as there always is in this show. The man in question hadn't actually sailed before. Oh, and his boat wasn't seaworthy. Oh, and also tiny little detail, almost didn't mention it. He bet his family home on making it to the finish line. What ensued was one of the most complex cheating plots in British sporting history.

To find out the full story, follow British Scandal wherever you listen to podcasts or listen early and ad-free on Wondery Plus on Apple Podcasts or the Wondery app. Hello, I'm Emily and I'm one of the hosts of Terribly Famous, the show that takes you inside the lives of our biggest celebrities.

And they don't get much bigger than the man who made badminton sexy. OK, maybe that's a stretch, but if I say pop star and shuttlecocks, you know who I'm talking about. No? Short shorts? Free cocktails? Careless whispers? Okay last one it's not Andrew Ridgely. Yep that's right it's stone-cold icon George Michael. From teen pop sensation to one of the biggest solo artists on the planet join us for our new series George Michael's Fight for Freedom. From the outside, it looks like he has it all. But behind the trademark dark sunglasses is a man in turmoil.

George is trapped in a lie of his own making, with a secret he feels would ruin him if the truth ever came out. Follow Terribly Famous wherever you listen to your podcasts, or listen early and ad-free on Wanderie Plus on Apple Podcasts or the Wondery app. In 1935, the city of Sydney, Australia had a shark attack problem. There had been eight attacks in the last year alone, six of which had been fatal. And every time it happened, the local newspapers would write stories describing the scenes in graphic detail. They would call the sharks monsters and recount

how they'd latched onto some poor teenager and shaken their body around like a ragdoll. Certainly, these stories fueled the public's fear of sharks, but they also inspired fascination. People were amazed by the power and ferociousness of these creatures, and so they wanted to see them up close. Luckily, Bert Hobson was more than happy to oblige them. Bert and his brother Charlie owned the Coogee Beach Aquarium in Sydney. During the warmer months, the aquarium was used as a public swimming pool, but during the winter and fall, when it was too cold to swim, Burt would pump ocean water into the pool and then fill it with all kinds of aquatic creatures for visitors to see. But nothing got more people through the aquarium door than a shark. Even as the country

struggled to pull itself out of the Great Depression, which was the worst economic downturn in the history of the industrialized world, a shark could still draw big crowds and big money. Over the last few years, Burt had managed to capture and exhibit more than 20 sharks. But the problem was, none of the sharks lived very long. They typically died within just a few weeks of being in captivity. And so, the Hobson brothers were always on the hunt for a new shark. This was especially true in April of 1935 because Coogee Beach was going to play host to a massive parade in honor of Anzac Day. Anzac Day is a national day of remembrance in Australia and New Zealand that primarily is about honoring fallen

soldiers. Tens of thousands of people were scheduled to attend the event on April 25th, and Bert figured if he could catch a shark, the aquarium could capitalize on some of that holiday foot traffic. So on the morning of April 18th, Bert headed out onto the water in his big fishing boat. The day before, he'd set some fishing lines about a mile and a half from the beach and baited them with chunks of mackerel, hoping that when he returned, he'd find a shark tangled up in his lines. And Bert would not be disappointed. That day when he checked the lines, there was this massive 14.5-foot-long tiger shark ensnared in his trap.

Even more exciting for Bert was the shark was exhausted and not trying to put up a fight. It had clearly spent the night before struggling to free itself, and now it just didn't have the energy to resist Bert reeling it in. So Bert grabbed the lines and attached them to his boat, and then he towed the shark back to the aquarium, where it was put into the pool. Looking down at his prize swimming around the tank, Bert was sure this huge shark was going to be a massive media sensation. And Bert would be right, although not for the reasons he expected.

The Hobson brothers bought ad space in all the major local newspapers announcing their newest attraction. They called it the largest tiger shark ever in captivity. And that may actually have been true. Most tiger sharks are 10 to 14 feet in length, and this one was 14 and a half feet long. The prospect of seeing this giant

creature attracted a massive crowd. However, for most of the week leading up to Anzac Day, the prized shark didn't put on much of a show. It barely ate and then when it did, it just kind of seemed docile and slow. It certainly was not living up to the ferocious monster hype the brothers had been selling. But then something strange happened. On Anzac Day, Thursday, April 25th, the brothers opened their aquarium early to try to capitalize on as much of the pre-parade foot traffic as they could, but again that day the shark just kind of swam slowly around and barely ate, and so by late afternoon only about a dozen people were still watching the shark. And just as those last dozen or so people

were getting ready to leave the aquarium right around 4.30 p.m., the shark started acting weird. Without warning, the shark just started thrashing violently around in the water. Its body was moving so fast and its tail was flapping so aggressively that it

practically beat the water to a foam. The spectators had absolutely no idea what was going on, but they were completely mesmerized by the spectacle of it. The shark then started rapidly swimming in circles around the pool, periodically smashing into the walls. And then, all of a sudden, the shark just stopped swimming. And for a moment, it just floated motionless in the center of the pool. And then, all of a sudden, the shark just stopped swimming. And for a moment, it just floated motionless in the center of the pool, and then it just sank to the bottom. At first, all the onlookers assumed the shark must have died. But then, they started to see this stuff rising up through the water just above the shark. And when this stuff got to the surface, it formed this mass of chunky, putrid scum that smelled and looked like vomit. And in fact, that's what it was. Vomiting is a fairly common behavior

in sharks. When they get stressed out, like when they're caught in nets or beached, or when they've been dragged from their habitat and then put in a pool that's too small for them, they sometimes throw up. The behavior is even more common in tiger sharks because tiger sharks will eat pretty much anything that crosses their path, including things they can't digest, like turtle shells and metal, which is why they're always having to throw up to get these things out of their body. But no one in the audience knew this, so as this pool of shark vomit was beginning to settle on the surface of the water, the spectators just stared at it, trying to understand what it was. And as they were

looking, they started to notice these shapes inside of the vomit that they sort of recognized. At first, what they saw were things like fish bones and shark fins, the kind of things you would expect to find in the stomach of a shark. But then there were also these other things that you wouldn't really expect to see, like a dead rat and a partially digested bird. And then they noticed something else, a human arm. And this arm had a rope tied around its wrist. The spectators were horrified. They started gasping and screaming and shouting for someone to call the police. Bert Hobson grabbed a stick and did his best to push the arm over to the side of the pool while his brother Charlie rushed inside to call the authorities. By the time the cops arrived, the shark had recovered from its sickness and was back to swimming slow laps around the pool.

So, the first thing the cops had to do was secure the arm before the shark decided it was hungry again. The detectives lifted the arm from the water using the rope around its wrist, and then they placed it inside of a burlap bag they brought to collect evidence. And then the police turned their attention to the obvious question everyone had. How did this arm wind up inside of this shark? The Hobson brothers assured the police there was no way someone could have thrown the arm into the pool without their knowledge because the shark had been under constant surveillance since arriving at the aquarium seven days earlier. There was also

no way someone could have fallen into the pool during off hours because they kept the aquarium locked when they weren't there. So the Hobson brothers were certain that the arm must have already been in the shark's belly when it arrived at their aquarium. And the victim, whoever they were, was likely just another casualty of the latest wave of shark attacks in Sydney's harbors. But the police weren't so sure about that theory, at least not the part about a random shark attack. To them, the rope tied around the arm's wrist seemed to suggest something more intentional, possibly murder or maybe suicide. They didn't know, but something seemed off. But regardless, the police knew their first order of business was just

identifying the owner of the arm so that their family could be notified about their death. Now, in 1935, under normal circumstances, trying to figure out whose arm this was would be nearly impossible because DNA had not been discovered yet. And so all investigators could do was just look at the arm and see if there were any features on it that could lead to the owner. And in this case, there were. The first thing they noticed was that the arm was in shockingly good condition. In fact, there appeared to be hardly any signs of digestion at all, which was surprising considering how long it must have been in the shark's stomach. So, before the police even left the aquarium,

they called a fingerprinting specialist who drove out to the site and then cut and peeled the skin off the fingertips for later analysis. The second thing the police noticed was a tattoo on the inner forearm. It was an illustration of two boxers facing off as if they were in the ring. Their bodies and gloves were drawn in blue ink and their boxing shorts were colored red. The design was unique enough that police felt hopeful a friend or family member might recognize it just from a written description in the newspaper. But when the police drove over to the morgue to have the arm analyzed further, what they would learn there would ensure that all the newspapers in the state

would be running much more than just a written description of that tattoo. At the morgue, the local medical officer became instantly fixated on the question of how the arm had come to be removed from the owner's body. Up to that point, everyone, including most of the police, assumed the shark had just bitten the arm off. But to the medical officer, the arm did not look like it had been bitten off at all. There were none of the ragged tears or bite marks like you'd expect to see with a shark attack. Instead, the arm appeared to have been cut from the body with surgical precision, most likely with a knife, which meant

this death was likely not the result of a shark attack. In all likelihood, it was a murder by a person, and then after this guy was killed, the shark was either fed the body part, or after the parts were dumped into the water, the shark happened to find the arm and ate it. This new twist on the case created an instant media frenzy. Newspapers all over the country ran stories about this strange situation with the shark arm in Sydney. And a bunch of those papers actually ran a photo of the tattoo, along with instructions for readers to contact the authorities if they recognized it. And someone did. On April 28th, just three days after the scene at the aquarium, police received a call from a guy saying he'd seen the photo of the tattoo in the paper, and he knew who the arm belonged to. Without a doubt, the guy said, that arm belongs to my

older brother, Jim Smith. To most of the police at the precinct, the guy said, that arm belongs to my older brother, Jim Smith. To most of the police at the precinct, the name Jim Smith meant nothing. But for Detective Frank Matthews, the man who would be leading the so-called shark arm case, hearing the name Jim Smith would completely change the way he was thinking about the investigation ahead of him. Because Matthews knew that Jim could not have been just a random victim. About a year earlier, Jim had become a secret police informant. It started with an insurance fraud scheme gone wrong. Some wealthy men had bought a yacht called the Pathfinder, and then they over-insured it. They then hired Jim to be the captain of the Pathfinder, and his job was to drive and maintain the boat,

and then at an appointed date and time, sink it. The wealthy men would then cash in the insurance claim and split the proceeds amongst those involved in the scheme. But when Jim was actively sinking the boat as ordered, a water policeman saw it happening and yelled out offering to help. But Jim panicked and just pretended not to hear the police officer, allowing the boat to continue to sink. And so later on, when the wealthy men tried to file their insurance claim on the boat, that water policeman remembered that strange encounter with Jim, and before long, the insurance claim was flagged for fraud. Detective Matthews had been assigned to that case and Jim was one of the first people brought in for questioning. But as soon as they started talking Jim broke down completely and told the detective everything. In

exchange for immunity Jim promised to supply Detective Matthews with information on Sydney's vast criminal underworld. This was an extremely dangerous trade for Jim to make. Because of the massive financial fallout caused by the Great Depression, desperation had driven many otherwise law-abiding Sydney residents to participate in some capacity in this criminal underworld. And people like Jim, who snitched to the police, threatened their livelihood. So, when Detective Matthews heard that the shark arm victim was Jim Smith, he assumed that someone must have found out that Jim was a police informant and they had had him killed to shut him up. But the detective didn't reveal any of this to Jim's brother when they spoke. He simply asked the brother to come down to the station and give a formal statement, which he agreed to do.

The next morning, Jim's brother arrived at the police station, and with him was Jim's wife. She fought back tears as she told police it had been more than 10 days since she or anyone else had seen Jim. The last time they spoke to him, he said he'd been hired to take a wealthy man out on a fishing trip. He said he didn't know how long he'd be gone, but he'd be staying at a cabin on the coast, and if they needed to reach him, he would be checking his messages at the Hotel Cecil in Cronulla. Cronulla is one of Sydney's many coastal suburbs. By this point, Detective Matthews could tell this was going to be a very challenging investigation with a lot of media scrutiny. And part of him wondered if maybe he was jumping to conclusions. Maybe Jim hadn't been murdered. Maybe he really had just been attacked by a shark. And if he had, then most likely the rest of Jim's body, or at least more of his body, would be inside of that

tiger shark. And as it happened, that tiger shark had actually died shortly after vomiting up Jim's arm. And so Detective Matthews went to the dock where the shark's body was being held by a fish oil merchant, and there he watched as the giant fish was cut open and nothing but fish parts fell out of it. This was enough to convince Matthews that this was no animal attack. Jim had to have been murdered by a person. So he tipped his hat to the fish oil merchant and headed back to the station

where he would make plans for the next phase of the investigation, canvassing Cronulla where Jim had told his wife he would be checking his messages. The first place police were sent in Cronulla was the bar at the Hotel Cecil, and immediately police got a hit. When the bartender saw a photo of Jim, he instantly told police that he recognized him, and even called him by name. He said, that's Jim Smith. Apparently, Jim had visited this bar on several occasions, enough to be on a first-name basis with the bartender, and also the bartender said Jim was just a very memorable guy. He was tall and athletic, and at one point, he'd trained to be a boxer, which is why he had

that tattoo on his forearm of the two boxers. But the bartender said it had been a long time since Jim had come around. The last time he saw Jim was the evening of April 8th. Jim arrived in the early afternoon and stayed for several hours, drinking beer and playing dominoes with the locals, and then around 6 p.m. he left with a friend called Mr. Williams, a man that the bartender described as being very, very short. Detective Matthews knew who the bartender was talking about, and he also knew that this very short man was not named Mr. Williams. The real name of the short man was Patty Brady, and Matthews knew he was a very close friend of Jim's. Patty was well known to police as a master

forger. He'd picked up the talent in his 20s while he was in the military. Patty had been in and out of jail on a regular basis since he was 11 years old. In fact, the police had an active warrant out for his arrest in connection with some forging charges, which Matthews assumed was the reason Patty was going around using a fake name. He didn't want to get arrested. But despite being a career criminal, Patty was not known to be a violent criminal. So even though Patty seemed like he could have been the last person to see Jim alive, the combination of him being Jim's close friend and Patty being non-violent made it hard for investigators to believe that he might have

had anything to do with Jim's murder. But over the next few days, as police continued speaking to residents of Cronulla, it started to seem like Patty had in fact done harm to his friend. Paddy had in fact done harm to his friend. I'm Peter Frankopan. And I'm Afua Hirsch. And we're here to tell you about our new season of Legacy, covering the iconic, troubled musical genius that was Nina Simone. Full disclosure, this is a big one for me.

Nina Simone, one of my favourite artists of all time, somebody who's had a huge impact on me, who I think objectively stands apart for the level of her talent, the audacity of her message. If I was a first year at university, the first time I sat down and really listened to her and engaged with her message, it totally floored me. And the truth and pain and messiness of her struggle, that's all captured in unforgettable music that has stood the test of time. Think that's fair, Peter? I mean, the way in which her music comes across is so powerful, no matter what song it is. So join us on Legacy for Nina Simone. what song it is. So join us on Legacy for Nina Simone. podcast called Mr. Ballin's Medical Mysteries. And as the name suggests, it's a show about medical mysteries, a genre that many fans have been asking us to dive into for years, and we finally decided

to take the plunge, and the show is awesome. In this free weekly show, we explore bizarre, unheard of diseases, strange medical mishaps, unexplainable deaths, and everything in between. Each story is totally true and totally terrifying. Go follow Mr. Ballin's Medical Mysteries wherever you get your podcasts. And if you're a Prime member, you can listen early and ad-free on Amazon Music. The information police gathered in Cronulla

led them to a cottage on the water in Cronulla, and this cottage was being rented by Patty. And apparently, on April 8th, after Jim and Patty had left the Hotel Cecil, the pair had traveled by boat to this cottage and gone inside together, but the next day, only Patty came out, and after that, no one heard from Jim again. Initially, police couldn't think of a good reason why Patty might want to kill his friend, but when Matthews followed up on where Patty went on April 9th, so the morning after he and Jim had gone into the cottage together, a theory started to form in Matthews' head.

Matthews learned that on the morning of April 9th, Patty left the cottage and headed for a taxi depot. The driver of the taxi told police that Patty looked disheveled and totally out of it. Patty asked the driver to take him to McMahon's Point, a wealthy community on Sydney's North Shore. The driver dropped Patty off outside of this large fancy house right above the water, and he watched Patty go inside. Patty would stay in the house for about 40 minutes, and then he would call another cab to come pick him up and drive him back to Cronulla. Some of the detectives wondered who a guy like Patty would be visiting in a fancy place like McMahon's Point, but Detective Matthews knew exactly which house the driver was talking about,

and he knew exactly who lived there. The house belonged to a well-known businessman named Reginald Holmes. Back in the 1850s, Holmes' father was considered to be the best boat builder in Sydney. He built luxury yachts and speedboats, and he made an absolute fortune selling them. And then, when he retired, he handed the whole boating empire over to his oldest son, Reginald. For decades, the Holmes family lived like royalty in Sydney Harbour. But then the Great Depression hit, and Holmes' yacht-building business, like all other luxury businesses, went downhill fast. So, to maintain his luxury lifestyle and preserve the prestige of his name, Reginald Holmes had found other ways of making money. Mostly, he used his boats to facilitate drug

smuggling off the coast of Sydney Harbour. Many people were involved, but hardly anyone ever got in trouble for it because at the time, there were only two cops in Sydney assigned to drug cases. But the thing that put Holmes on Matthews' radar was the sinking of the Pathfinder. Remember how Jim became an informant after a couple of wealthy men hired him to sink their yacht, the Pathfinder. Remember how Jim became an informant after a couple of wealthy men hired him to sink their yacht, the Pathfinder? Well, Detective Matthews had recently discovered that Reginald Holmes and his close friend, Albert Stannard, were those two wealthy men. The only reason Matthews had not pursued charges against them was that they had withdrawn their insurance claim after he had started investigating them.

At this point, the police felt nearly certain that Holmes had to be involved somehow in Jim's death. There were just too many coincidences. But they didn't have enough evidence to actually charge Holmes with anything. So instead, they went after Patty. At 6.30 p.m. on May 16th, police arrested Patty at his home and drove him back to the

precinct where he was subjected to more than six hours of questioning. But in all that time, Patty skirted every one of the investigator's questions and barely broke a sweat. Unlike Jim, Patty was a career criminal who lived by a sort of code of honor, meaning he would never snitch. But Patty also realized that he was facing murder charges, which meant he could be facing the death penalty if he was convicted. So eventually, Patty's code kind of eroded, and he made a calculated decision. If he was going to be forced to take the fall for Jim's death, he was going to make sure that Holmes went down with him. Patty told police in an official statement that

he'd first met Holmes about a year earlier, back when Jim had been hired to be the captain of the Pathfinder. But after that big insurance scam failed with the Pathfinder, Patty said that Jim was left without any money because he didn't get paid for the scam. And so he and Patty came up with a new scam and presented it to Holmes. The idea was to forge checks from Holmes' wealthier clients in amounts so small that the clients wouldn't notice. Holmes would supply the checks, Patty would forge the signatures, and Jim would cash the checks from his account. And then all three men would split the profits. It's unclear why someone like Reginald Holmes would sign up for such a high-risk,

low-reward kind of scam, but reading between the lines in Patty's statement, Detective Matthews considered the possibility that perhaps Jim was angry about not getting paid for the Pathfinder job, and he might have told Holmes that if he didn't cooperate with he and Patty's forging scam, that Jim would go to police about Holmes' role in the Pathfinder insurance scam. Whatever the motivation was, Holmes agreed to participate with Patty and Jim. And for a long time, their scam worked, and the three men made some nice money.

Eventually though, Jim and Patty got greedy and decided they wanted to level up the scam operation. They wanted to forge a check for a whopping £620, which, for reference, would be worth more than £11,000 today when adjusted for inflation. Holmes agreed and produced the check, and in the week leading up to Jim's disappearance, Paddy visited Holmes' house many times to practice forging the signature. In fact, according to Paddy's statement, that was why he visited Holmes on the morning of April 9th. But when it came to the death of his friend Jim Smith, Patty said he didn't know

anything. He said that when he left the cabin that morning on April 9th to go to Holmes' house, Jim was alive and well. The police weren't sure if they believed Patty's version of events, but his statement gave them what they needed to go after Holmes. So the next morning, Holmes was brought in for questioning. Holmes was only 44 years old and he'd lived a life of immense privilege, but when he walked into the police station on May 17th, he seemed much older and more frail than a 44-year-old should be. There were rumors that after the Pathfinder scam had failed, Holmes had had a nervous breakdown and he had begun self-medicating with alcohol and cocaine. The police presented

Holmes with a copy of Patty's statement, but after Holmes read it, he denied every word. Not only did he claim to have no idea what Patty was talking about in the statement, Holmes told police that he didn't even know who Patty was and he certainly had never visited Holmes' house. Obviously, the police knew this was a lie. But Holmes was a powerful person with powerful lawyers, and for the time being, the police could not force him to talk. Instead, they made another move against Patty. On Sunday, May 19th, the news hit the papers. Patti was officially being charged with the murder of Jim Smith. There would be a public trial, which meant if Patti stuck to his story, Holmes would be compelled to testify in front of the press about both his shady business dealings

and the death of Jim Smith. Holmes knew that that kind of media attention would ruin him and his family. So, on the morning of May 20th, a day after Patty was officially charged with murder, Holmes got up early and headed down to the harbor. The weather was cold and foggy, but Holmes was determined to get out on the water. So, he walked to the wharf where his friend and co-conspirator, Albert Stannard, kept a small boatyard. Stannard wasn't at the harbor just yet, but Holmes found one of Stannard's employees who was just starting to set up for the day. Holmes asked the employee if he could borrow one of Albert's speedboats for a quick ride along the coastline.

The employee could easily tell that Holmes was drunk, but he knew that Holmes was a skilled boater and a close friend of his boss, so he said, sure, I'll get you set up. The man filled the boat with fuel and oil and then pushed it out onto the water. Holmes climbed in, threw the boat into high gear, and sped away from the dock. It was only about 7.30 in the morning, and the ordinary people of Sydney were just beginning to board their commuter ferries across the harbor. But Holmes appeared to be on a mission. As he headed east toward open water, his eyes stared straight ahead. He pushed the boat to go faster and faster until tears were streaming out of his eyes. And then he abruptly cut the engine. As the boat gently rocked in the waves, Holmes found

himself staring at a particular stretch of coastline, Piper Point, the most expensive suburb in all of Sydney. He thought about all the people he knew who lived there and imagined them reading the horrible headlines that were sure to be written about him during the upcoming trial. With his eyes looking straight ahead, Holmes reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a bottle of brandy. There wasn't much left in the bottle, but he gulped down the last of it and then threw the bottle over his shoulder. And then Holmes reached back into his pocket and pulled out a revolver. And there, within full view of the people who lived on Piper Point, Holmes pointed the gun at his forehead and pulled the trigger. The gun went

off and the blast threw Holmes' body out of the boat and into the water. But, shockingly, he survived. The bullet hit the thickest part of his forehead, so instead of puncturing his skull, it just sort of flattened there against his forehead and then fell to the ground, leaving him with a giant flesh wound on his face. As soon as Holmes hit the water, he bobbed back to the surface like a cork, and for a second he just looked around wondering what happened, while blood gushed from his forehead. Then, he just swam back over to his boat and climbed inside. Meanwhile, the residents of Piper Point, who had actually seen the attempted suicide, began calling the police.

The water police were dispatched to the area, and they raced towards the injured boater, but as soon as they got close to his boat, Holmes would just turn his boat around and speed away. This happened over and over again with the water police trying to get close enough to help and Holmes cutting the wheel sharply and rushing away from them at the last second. And even though Holmes periodically would pass out behind the wheel, either from blood loss or drunkenness or both. He still managed to evade the water police for more than four hours. Finally, Detective Matthews and his squad were notified of what was going on out on the water, and so they headed out in their own boat, and with the help of Holmes' own brother in another boat,

they were able to finally jump on board of Holmes' craft and tackle him and pull the keys out of his ignition. Holmes was taken back to shore and sent immediately to the hospital and then five days later, when Holmes was finally healthy enough, he told detectives he was ready to talk. Holmes told police that Patty had been blackmailing him for months, threatening to reveal what he knew about the Pathfinder insurance scam if Holmes didn't pay him. But then, on the morning of April 9th, the morning after Jim was last seen at the cottage with Patty, Patty had come to Holmes' house looking disheveled and carrying a big brown leather bag. Patty told Holmes that he'd been with Jim at the cottage the night before, but they'd gotten into a fight that ended with Jim getting killed. So Patty had loaded Jim's body into a tin trunk he found at the cottage and disposed of it

by dumping it into the water. But apparently, not all of Jim's body had fit inside of that tin trunk. Holmes said that at that point, Patty reached into this brown leather bag he had with him, and he pulled out Jim's arm, holding it by a rope that he had tied around the wrist. Holmes said this scared him so badly that he immediately decided to just do whatever Patty wanted in fear that Patty might kill him too. And so from that point onward, whenever Patty called to ask for money, Holmes would give it to him. To the police handling the interrogation,

Holmes seemed genuinely afraid as he spoke. He chain-smoked and his hands shook when he signed his statement, but it was impossible to tell if he was afraid of Patty or of the stain this case was going to leave on his reputation. In any case, the majority of the details in his story lined up with what the police had uncovered in their investigation. So, they asked Holmes if he would be willing to testify that Patty killed Jim and disposed of Jim's body, and Holmes said he would. Now, not all of the detectives believed that Patty was guilty. The idea that this tiny guy could have killed this huge athletic guy, Jim, who had literally been, at one point, a professional fighter, seemed totally implausible. But with all the media attention on this case,

the police were facing an immense amount of pressure to just close it. And since they still couldn't find Jim's body, Holmes' story was their best shot at closing the case. Before Holmes left the station, the detectives asked him if he wanted police protection, but Holmes declined. Before Patty could officially be indicted for murder, the police would have to present their evidence to the coroner. In cases where a wrongful death is suspected, it is the coroner's job to determine the cause of death and who may have been responsible. On May 30th, the lead detectives were called to the office of the coroner to present all of the information they had uncovered in the case of Jim Smith's death.

But after presenting all their evidence, the coroner told them that there was not yet enough information to determine how Jim Smith had died, and so they would have to have an inquest. An inquest is a judicial inquiry to ascertain the facts relating to an incident, such as a death. The date for the inquest was set for June 12th, which meant detectives had just two weeks to prepare all of their evidence, and just two weeks to hopefully finally find Jim's body. But at the end of those two weeks, despite searching the water extensively, police did not locate Jim's body. Which meant pretty much their entire case against Patty would rest on the testimony of Reginald Holmes,

a man who, just weeks earlier, had publicly demonstrated that he was both dangerous and mentally unstable. And as the days until the inquest ticked by, Holmes' mental health only seemed to worsen. He spent entire days drinking in his bed, scared that if he went outside, he would be killed, either for what he'd said to police or for what he might say on the stand at the inquest. And it would turn out his fears were legitimate. In the early hours of June 12th, the day of the inquest, a police officer was making his rounds when he noticed a car idling by the side of the road. Its headlights were on, and the passenger door was

open, and the driver was just kind of sitting there, leaning forward. June is wintertime in Australia, and in a coastal city like Sydney, the wind that sweeps in from the harbor can be extremely cold, and so worried something was wrong because this guy's door is open, the patrolman quickly got out of his car and he hustled over to the idling car to see what was happening. The patrolman came around to the open passenger door and shined a flashlight on the driver, and right away he saw the driver was covered in blood and had been shot several times on the left side of their body. By the time the sun came out and people started gathering outside the courtroom for the inquest, the story had already hit the papers.

Reginald Holmes had been murdered, only seven hours before he was scheduled to testify at the inquest. Without the police's star witness, the case against Patty Brady was bound to fail. For one thing, the police had no direct evidence tying Patty to Jim's murder, but as it would turn out, that wasn't even their biggest problem. At the inquest, which did end up happening, Patty's lawyer would argue that the court could not find Patty responsible for Jim's death since there was actually no hard evidence that Jim was even dead. All they knew was Jim was missing an arm, and people can survive without an arm. And since this was technically true,

the coroner was determined to have no authority to hold this inquest, which meant they had to shut it down. Patty would be acquitted of all charges. However, he would spend the rest of his life going in and out of jail for other offenses. Jim's body would never be found, and no one would ever be convicted for his murder. Nor would anyone ever be convicted for the murder of Reginald Holmes, although some people believe Holmes' murder was orchestrated by his old friend and co-conspirator Albert Standard, either to help his family collect on one of his many

life insurance policies, or to avoid him ruining both of their reputations by testifying at the inquest that would implicate both of them. Many people in Sydney considered these outcomes to be a huge miscarriage of justice and a total failure on the part of the police. But many other people in Sydney were quietly relieved that the people involved in this very bizarre shark arm case took their secrets of Sydney's underworld with them to the grave. Thank you for listening to the Mr. Ballin Podcast. If you got something out of this episode and you haven't done this already,

the next time the Amazon Music Follow button invites you over to their house for dinner, bring your trash with you and secretly hide it around their home. This podcast airs every Monday and Thursday morning, but in the meantime, you can always watch one of the hundreds of stories we have posted on our main YouTube channel, which is just called Mr. Ballin. Consider donating to our charity. It's called the Mr. Ballin Foundation, and it provides support to victims of violent crime, as well as their families. Monthly donors to the Mr. Ballin Foundation, and it provides support to victims of violent crime as well as their families. Monthly donors to the Mr. Ballin Foundation Honor Them Society will receive free gifts and exclusive invites to special live events. Go to mrballin.foundation and click

Get Involved to join the Honor Them Society today. If you want to get in touch with me, please follow me on any major social media platform and then send me a direct message. My username is just at Mr. Ballin and I really do read the majority of my DMs. Lastly, we have some really cool merchandise, so head on over to shopmrballin.com to have a look. So that's going to do it. I really appreciate your support. Until next time, see ya. Hey, Prime members. You can binge eight new episodes of the Mr. Ballin podcast one month early and all episodes ad-free on Amazon Music. Download the Amazon Music app today.

And before you go, please tell us about yourself by completing a short survey at wondery.com slash survey. Hey, Mr. Ballin fans. Did you know you can listen to episodes of this very show ad-free and one month early on Amazon Music with your Prime membership? That's right. All your favorite Mr. Ballin episodes can be heard on Amazon Music ad-free, and you'll always be the first one to catch our new episodes. But that's not all. You get access to other amazing shows like Mr. Ballin's Medical Mysteries, Morbid, 48 Hours, and 2020, all ad-free too. And you know what that means. Uninterrupted listening, so no more cliffhangers. Amazon Music is your home for all things true crime and offers the most ad-free top podcasts,

so we definitely have something for you. And it's already included in your Prime membership. To listen now, all you need to do is go to amazon.com slash ballin. That's amazon.com slash ballin or download the free Amazon Music app. It's just that easy.