True Crime All The Time - Martin Bryant Pt1

Episode Date: November 30, 2020

In April of 1996, Martin Bryant perpetrated an unimaginable mass shooting in Port Arthur, Tasmania that shocked Australia and the world. Bryant's actions left 35 dead and many people wounded. It caused changes in Australia's gun laws, and left many pointing the finger at agencies they felt could have stopped Bryant at different points in time.Join Mike and Gibby as they discuss Martin Bryant and the Port Arthur massacre. In this first of two episodes, we'll focus on Bryant's early life and his struggles with issues that made it difficult for him to cope with the world around him. Martin developed a relationship with a millionaire heiress named Helen Harvey that changed his life in a profound way. But, was that change for the good? And, did the deaths of two people close to him cause him to lose those who had helped keep him grounded? You can help support the show at patreon.com/truecrimeallthetimeVisit the show's website at truecrimeallthetime.com for contact, merchandise, and donation informationAn Emash Digital productionSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Your math skills have global potential. As an actuary, you'll solve some of the world's most pressing problems while helping people to live better lives. Become an actuary through the society of actuaries and work anywhere in the world. Hello everyone and welcome to episode 210 of the True Crime All the Time podcast. I'm Mike Ferguson. And with me as always is my partner in true crime, Mike Gibson. Gibby, how are you? Hey man, I'm doing good, man.

How about you? I'm doing great. You know, you and I are taping this a little early, so we don't know how our thanksgivings have gone. But let's just assume that for both of us, they went outstanding. Right. You had a great Thanksgiving with your family. I had a great Thanksgiving with mine. I mean, I can make that assumption because I never really have a bad one.

No. It's always great. As long as you don't ruin the turkey, man. Yeah, that's the key. And my wife is really good at, at. making the turkey. So we hope everyone else that celebrates it had a good Thanksgiving as well. Right. We had some amazing support. So let's go ahead and give our shoutouts. We had Naomi Childress jumped out at our highest level. Hey, Naomi. Stephanie Smith. What's going on, Stephanie? Tammy

Andrade. Hey, Andrade. Roberta Mac. What's going on, Mac attack? Shannon West. Hey, Shannon. Ruth Graham jumped out to our highest level. Hey, Ruth. Tony Morland. What's happening, Tony? Kathy Davis jumped out at our highest level. Man, that's amazing. Thank you, Kathy. Megan and Cole. What's going on, Megan and Cole?

Crystal Slaughter. Hey, slaughter in the house. Sandy Parky. Hey, Sandy. Tim Meneer. What's going on, Meneer? Luis Peckham jumped out at our highest level. Again, join him, Peckham.

And Justin did as well. Hey, thank you, Justin. Darren. Hey, Darren. Linda McGuinness. What's happening, Linda? Claire Russell. Well, thank you, Claire.

Karen Twombly, jumped out. Outdoor Highest Love. Tuamli. So did Stacy Harrison. Hey, Stacy. We had Jayton Lee. What's up, J-T-Tong? And Zach Gersmelli, who I know is having an anniversary.

He may be listening to this on his anniversary. Really? Well, hey, Grismeli. Yep. His wife reached out very nicely and gave me the 4-1-1. Really? Mm-hmm. Is that the same thing as the infomation?

Infomation. Yeah. Infomation. information. Yeah. And then if we go back into the vault, Gibbs, this week we selected Sharon Diaz. Hey, Sharon. Yeah, love that long time support. She's been with us a long time. But we love the new support as well. We had some great PayPal donations, Mark Gordon. Hey, Mark. Patricia Hale. Thanks, Patricia. Richard. Richard. What's going on, Richard? And Stephanie Berman. Hey, Stephanie. So, Gibbs, we have a lot out right now. We do. You and I just put out a Patreon.

episode. We, we missed a month because you were kind of on the, the mend. Yeah. But we did just put out one on Peter Shoebridge. And, you know, it's interesting because this case takes place in Tasmania, Australia. Right. And it's why I selected this case for TCAT that we're getting ready to talk about. Yeah. Not just the fact that they both take place in Tasmania, but. There is a connection between the two. And for those of you on Patreon, make sure you go listen to it. If you're not, now's a great time to sign up. It's a great gift for somebody else.

You can do that. It's a great gift for yourself. Gibby had a great idea, which I completely agreed with. You know, we did that show the reviews are in. A lot of people liked it. We didn't have enough people that, you know, listen to it. and to be honest Gibbs we didn't give it you know that much of a chance right but we thought as an added bonus for our patreon members in December we're going to put out all of the episodes we did so

you know if you liked it you'll get you can re-listen to it if you never got to hear it which you can't now because the podcast is no longer out there patron's a place where you can find them yeah and they're funny we had a lot of fun doing Yeah. So we've got that. And then we have a brand new episode right now on T-Cat Unsolved. We're talking about Princess Doe in New Jersey. Yeah. It's a good episode. Check it out. All right, Gibbs. Are you ready to get into this episode of TrueKheim all the time? I'm ready, man. We're talking about Martin Bryant and the Port Arthur Massacre, which occurred in Tasmania, Australia. Like I said, this case has a connection to the Patreon episode on Peter Shoebridge that we just put out.

This is a huge case. I always knew we would cover it. Now just seemed like the right time with the connection to the Shoebridge case. In 1996, Bryant opened fire in an area of Port Arthur, filled with shops and cafes, killing 35 and wounding another 20 to 30 plus people. Now, I will say this. The reporting on the number of wounded seems to be all over the place depending on what newspaper article, you know, what publication you're looking at. I've seen 24 in many places. I've seen it as high as 37. It is Australia's largest mass murder in modern

times. And I think at the time, it was the worst ever committed by a lone person. Now, unfortunately, Gibbs, as we all know too well, there have been some devastating mass shootings around the world since that time. And, you know, this is such a complex and interesting case that there's really no way it can be properly told in one episode. So I think in this first episode, will cover the life of Martin Bryant and try to uncover some of the events, some of the things that he experienced throughout his life that led up to the tragedy. So let's start off by talking about Martin Bryant. Who is this guy?

What led him down the path to carrying out this atrocity? Martin was born on May 7th, 1967 in Hobart, Tasmania, to Maurice and Carlene Bryant. He was the oldest of two children. From a young age, Martin's parents knew that he was not developing at the same rate as other children of his age. Now, he was extremely active. He was a handful to keep up with, according to his mother, he would call. climb on basically anything. He would climb on top of the cabinets in the house, run outside, climb up trees. He was a climber. Yeah, he was very active. He was a whirlwind. Now, I believe a lot of

kids are pretty hyperactive, you know, at this age. And they turn out just fine. Right. There's not a problem with that. That, but that was just one aspect of his behavior. His speech and his fine motor skills. They were all well behind those of the other kids his age. And I think his slow development became even more apparent once he was enrolled in school. Because I do think that is sometimes hard for parents. If you've got a child and he's not around a lot of other kids his age, well, you know, what are you using to compare? Right. Where's your gauge at? Yeah. How are you gauging it? But once he's in school, around a bunch of other kids his age,

I think it becomes, you know, pretty apparent. He didn't get along with other kids. That left him isolated. Teachers and classmates later recalled that he was extremely disruptive in school. For one thing, he was always restless, could not sit still. And he couldn't pay attention to what was going on in class. Again, I think. a lot of kids today have that. You know, my wife's a teacher. I've mentioned that many times.

She's talked about that. Yeah. And the one thing that she tells me a lot of times, you know, many of the kids are on some type of medication for some of these types of things. She can tell from day to day who has taken their medication and who is not. Because, you know, she'll make a call or send an email home saying, you know, Johnny was pretty disruptive today. Right. Did he take his medication? And, you know, one of the parents will say, no, we forgot it or he forgot it. And she just knows because she can see the difference in the behavior.

Yeah. It's very, very apparent. It's a stark contrast. Right. As to whether they took it or not. He was often bullied, something that you and I hear a lot. about killers, but I think with Martin, you know, he could be very violent towards others himself. Other kids referred to him as silly Martin. So it was kind of his nickname. Later, kids who knew him said

that he would taunt them into coming after him. So this was something different, something that I really, you know, had not heard a lot of. Right. You hear a lot of the kids that are thought to be odd or strange getting bullied. Yeah. It's not right. You and I have talked about it so many times, but we know that it happens. And I think it happened even much more so back in our time frame. Right.

For sure. When we were younger in school. But this is a little different. Yes, he got bullied. Yeah. But it was said that he would hide in the bushes. He would jump out at the bullies. and basically say, bring it on.

He invited it. Or, you know, and I think that's where the silly Martin comes from. Yeah. I don't know that he was trying to pick a fight with them. I got the sense that what he was trying to do was play around, be silly. Yeah. I guess he was, he was really acting silly quite a bit. Maybe they would laugh it off and not be such a bully to him?

No, I think he just thought. this is fun. Yeah. But he was continually getting beaten up for it. And at some point, you would think, okay, I shouldn't do that anymore. But we're going to find out, you know, his level of intelligence may not have told him that. But here's the thing that, you know, some of these kids said later on, they said, no matter how many times Martin got beat up, he never cried, he never showed any emotion. It was as if he didn't feel anything inside. Now, I kind of hinted at it. His IQ was somewhere in the 60s, very low. Really low. Yeah. And, you know, this was a revelation once it came out caused him to be placed into special classes. The one thing that many said about him as a

kid. And I think this is very important, is that Martin always seemed to be detached from what was going on around him. It was like Gibbs. He was in a daze or he was in his own world. And again, I talked with my wife about this and she has seen this over the years. You know, she's been a teacher for 20 plus years. So she's seen a lot of this. I think he had an emotional detachment as well. And maybe the two go hand in hand or maybe it's all encompassing. He just didn't display the level of caring that most others did. You and I have talked about that. You find that in sociopaths. Many serial killers have that, right? They don't care about other people. They don't have that level of empathy that most of us do. I think that's why you see them hurting animals at a young age. Yes. And we're going to see that with Martin as well.

But his mother, Carleen, has said that she noticed it pretty early on. You know, as a young child, he didn't want to cuddle, didn't like it, didn't respond to really any type of physical affection. So I think as a parent, that's kind of a red flag, right? Kids like little kids like affection. Sure, yeah. They like to be hugged. Now, you and I have girls at a certain age, you know, they don't want to be hugged. You're like, dad, get away from me.

Right. Don't mess up my hair. Don't mess up my makeup. I get that once you get into the tweens and the teens and all that. But as a baby, as a young child, oh my gosh, they would eat up the, the tickles and the hugs. And, you know, sometimes I wish I could go back to those days. I miss those days. Yeah.

When they loved you, they wanted to be around you. They still love you. They do still love me. They just want to shut their door and watch TikToks or whatever the heck they do. But I do think this is important. And another thing that I think is important to point out is that, you know, unlike in some of the cases that you and I do, Martin's parents really tried to help him, you know, based on advice from one of the schools he attended early on, his parents sought medical attention

for Martin. He was prescribed medication, which helped somewhat, but that help was pretty limited. His parents even tried putting him on a special diet that was thought back then to be a benefit to hyperactive kids. So again, a little different. You know, we have cases where the parents are completely supportive and their children just kind of turn out to be killers. And I think that's what we have here.

Now, we have a lot of cases where there's bad parents, there's abuse, there's, you know, all kinds of things going on in the home that shouldn't be that you and I talk about, okay, did that shape what this person was to become? I don't think Martin had any of that. I think it was pretty well documented. He just had some issues, I think from birth. Right. So when you're talking about.

nature versus nurture, this is definitely nature. I mean, this is, if that's what you want to call it, he was born with some things that just didn't allow him to empathize or, or feel some of the things that we would feel. He didn't develop it. He didn't get desensitized because, you know, he saw his father beating his mother on a regular basis or he didn't. start to think, okay, what I'm seeing is the norm, the right thing to do. He just didn't have that part. He just didn't have it. Yeah. Now, there were some bright spots in Martin's childhood. His family owned a shack on the beach where they would vacation. His mom would ride horses. And his father would take him fishing. He would later say these were his fondest memories.

I can see that being a good time. Sure. You're on the beach. You're on vacation. Yeah. Dad's taking me fishing. And, you know, from all the research that I did, I definitely got the sense that he was closer to his dad than he was to his mom. But to me, Gibbs, the detachment, it continued to get worse as he got older. He was incapable of reading social cues. I don't know if we'll get into it in this episode, maybe, you know, part two. There are going to be a lot of words thrown around. right about Martin Bryant. Definitely low IQ, right.

Schizophrenic's going to be thrown around. Autistic is a word that is thrown around. We'll talk about some of the things that he was actually diagnosed with, but there's a lot of medical terms that are thrown around as possibilities for what Martin Bryant suffered from. Right. He began torturing animals at a fairly young age, which we know that. a not a good sign. But he also reportedly went around the neighborhood cutting down neighbor's trees. Which is strange.

Which is strange, not something I've heard of. Yeah, I mean, it's all strange what he's doing. But this is one of those ones that, you know, I mean,

just imagine walking out to your driveway right now and seeing the neighbor boy out there cutting your tree down. I would not be a happy camper. No. Because I planted that tree in 17 years ago. Yeah. Not going to be real happy if I see young Billy out there with a saws all.

Yeah. Chopping it down. Or a skill saw chopping that bad boy down. I personally would use a chainsaw, but, you know. Yeah, I mean, you use that in almost every situation. And I think, yeah, I think you sometimes overdo it. Yeah. You subscribe to the go big or go home philosophy.

Right. You walked up and just snapped it in half and said it's done. Yeah. But I wanted to start the chainsaw, man. Because it's fun. You like to smell and all that. And you like the feeling. You like that power.

You like to rev it up. You know that. Sure. I get it. I get you, man. Yeah. Martin tormented his younger sister. Now, when he was 10, he was hospitalized for burns.

I saw some conflicting information here. Some reports said that he was playing with fireworks. And some reports say that he set himself on fire intentionally, you know, basically dowsing himself with some type of. of gas or flammable liquid. Yeah. Yeah. So, I mean, either way, I mean, one is much different than the other, but he did suffer some, some burns. I think over the years, he was suspended from school quite a bit. He used an air rifle that his dad gave him as a present to fire at cars as they passed. Well, there's a problem. That is a problem. Now, unfortunately, and I think I've told this

story before. I did have a phase where me and my buddies used to light bottle rockets on the ground. Yeah. And sometimes cars would come around the corner. And I think back at that. And I'm like, what in the hell were you thinking? Right. Exactly. You know what I wasn't thinking? This is stupid. This is very dangerous. So did it make me a bad person? Yeah, probably at the time. It didn't, It didn't go on to lead to me wanting to be violent or anything like that. A life of crime? No, it didn't lead to my life of crime. But while both dangerous, I'm not sure that I would put those on the same level.

We weren't aiming for cars. Right. You know, this, I got the sense that he was using this air rifle to aim at cars. And maybe even people in cars as they passed by. The other thing is there were a lot of people around where he grew up that thought, he was untying boats and setting them loose for fun just to drift away. Yeah, so spending a lot of time on the lake, that would be something that would really piss people off, you know?

Well, let's just say most, depending on what type of boat, but boats are expensive. Yeah. A lot of people really take care of their boats and they definitely would not want someone messing with them. Definitely a high level of mischief. And one story that ran in all of the papers was that Martin once shot a parrot out of a tree with his air rifle. We're going to hear a lot about this air rifle over the course of this episode. He then walked over to it and shot it six more times in the head. Okay.

That's not good. No. There's no reason to do that. But I think more eerie than even that part was that it was said, he was laughing as he was shooting this parrot in the head. And brought him joy. Yeah, he thought it was funny. Yeah.

And, you know, that's where you get into that area of, ooh, okay, we got something wrong here. Yeah. You're not viewing death. You're not viewing this act in the appropriate light, right? It's not a funny thing that is happening. Seems like things are just elevating. Yeah.

And again, I don't know everything we're talking about exactly what age and all of that. But you can see, I think it was escalating. And obviously we know it's going to escalate because it's going to end in this massacre, this unbelievably horrific, tragic event. He did have at least one friend. but that friendship ended when the two were diving. And when I say diving, I'm not talking snorkel or, you know, full respirator all that. I think they were just diving below the surface and probably trying to spear fish or

or whatever. But as Martin's friend surfaced from under the water, Martin stuck a spear gun into the top of his head. So that's, to me, a pretty quick way to end a friendship. Yeah, that wouldn't go over well with me and you went snorkeling and one of us put a spear gun in. No, I was going to say, I love you like a brother, but if you jam a spear gun into the top of my cranium, we're going to have issues. Probably will. You know, that's going to be something that is going to be hard to work out. Yeah, I might have to have the other spear ready to go.

Yeah, exactly. You have to put me down at that point because. Make you shark bait. needless to say he did not do well in school right martin struggled through school eventually leaving just before his 16th birthday and it was after this his parents took him to be evaluated by a psychiatrist who wrote that martin cannot read or write which is a little troublesome in and of itself that you made it all the way to your 16th birthday and was we're going you know was going to school that whole time and could not read or write he does

a bit of gardening, he watches TV. It's only his parents' efforts that prevent further deterioration could be schizophrenic and parents face a bleak future with him. The doctor concluded that Martin Bryant would never be able to hold down a job and therefore should receive a disability pension. It's not good. I think if you read that, you get the sense of how bleak. Right. His future is. is and, you know, really the future of his parents are going to have to deal with this and try to figure out, you know, how do we help him cope in a world that really he's not designed to be in or cope with. So Martin is not going to school.

He's living with his parents. He's receiving a disability pension. They were having trouble controlling him. And that led to a serious rift in their marriage. I think a lot of people can probably sympathize with that or or see how that could happen. His mood swings were constant, often violent. His mother said she was sometimes forced to flee the house with his younger sister out of fear of what he might do. Well, you know, if your own mom and sister don't feel safe around you, pretty scary.

Yeah, it definitely says something. The Sydney Morning Herald reported that it's, some point Martin set fire to a hospital, had his air rifle confiscated at one point, and was banned by a bus company for tormenting female passengers. His parents went to the community and health services department for help saying, you know what, we give up. We just cannot control him. He did get some counseling. He got some medication, but many people have alleged that this group basically wiped their hands of the situation. They didn't do enough to really help this kid and to help the parents.

Right. And this is just one of several things that would come up later as people started to point to finger at various agencies, wondering why Martin Bryant wasn't stopped before he could become a mass murderer. You know, you have that in a lot of situations. And there are a number of instances. Some will talk about this episode. Some will talk about probably next episode where the signs were there.

The signs were there that something bad is possibly going to happen, but people didn't pick up on them. Or if they did, they didn't do anything about it. Right. You can see it slowly escalating, escalating, escalating. Yeah. you can see it, but it's also going to be documented, right, in a number of instances. And then it's just like, okay, what do you do with that documentation? What do you do with what you've learned? And a lot of people

are going to say, hey, some of these people had a responsibility to do something. They didn't do it. His father, Maurice, encouraged him to go out, try to do some odd jobs around the neighborhood. So he did. He cut grass. He did all sorts of small jobs for people. And this led him to meet a woman named Helen Harvey. I've seen a number of reports, Gibbs, on when they met, how they met. Some reports have an employment agency setting up the meeting. The age at which he met her is all over the place.

You know, you and I talk about that in these cases. Right. You can read 100 different articles. Yeah. And you come out with many, many, many different times. timelines and facts and ages and dates and things like that. So, but I think the important thing is that they met. And Helen Harvey was worth millions, money she had inherited from her family who was involved

in the tattersalls. I had to look this up. Apparently, it was a group that essentially started and ran the gambling industry in Australia. Really? Yeah. in Tasmania back in the late 1890s. Good old tattersalls. Yes, they did lottos and all kinds of gambling type enterprises, but she had a lot of money. In the 1980s, Helen was living in a house at 30 Clare Street in Newtown with her aging mother. They were said to have been pretty reclusive

and they really didn't do a great job of keeping up with maintaining the yard work. And I think that's how Martin Bryant got involved, right? Either he's walking around looking for new customers or he was paired with them through an employment agency, whichever one you want to believe. Very quickly, Martin began taking care of the yard. And then, you know, over time, they had him start doing some other things. Apparently, they had more than 40 cats and 14 dogs. That's a lot of cats and a lot of dogs. It's a lot of animals to take care of. It's a lot of kitty litter. It's a lot of what happens after they eat the food.

Exactly. So, a lot of cleanup. They started paying Martin to take care of the animals. So you have Helen and her mother living in this big house. It wasn't just the outside that was unkempt. The inside was reported to be filthy. I mean, these two women didn't take care of themselves. They were in poor health.

they didn't bathe a lot you know when you got over 50 animals and and and out of that house you know we love animals love them yeah but you can only have so many you can only take care of so many a fission yes i think at a certain point it's just too much right to take care of and if you're not even taking care of yourself how are you taking care of 50 plus animals exactly you're not and eventually in 1990, someone called the authorities to come out and do a welfare check. They probably saw 50 cats or 40-some cats running around. When they got inside, they found Helen's 79-year-old mother. She had a broken hip.

She had infected sores all over her body. She was a mess. And really, Helen wasn't much better. Both Helen and her mother were taken to the hospital. and then eventually her mother went to a nursing home where she died not long after animal control took the animals out of the house and authorities put an order on the house that it be cleaned up and I go back to the fact that these people have millions of dollars right they are not destitute but chose not to use that money it looks like right they could have hired housekeepers they could

have hired landscapers. Yeah. They just didn't. And they chose to sit around in their own filth is basically what it sounds like. And I've seen those hoarder shows. Do you say hoarder? Yeah. Okay.

Yeah. I wasn't sure if you said hoarder or horror. Yeah, some of those hoarder shows, they are tough for me to watch. They really are. Some are interesting if it's just like, okay, this guy collects eight million magazines. I can handle that. But you get into some of those, you know, too many animals, feces piled up. Oh, yeah, I'm out. Yeah, I've watched them where they've

started cleaning out the house and then they find the dead animal. Yeah. Like in between things. You're like, how do you, what, nobody recognized the odor, the smell. Not only is that disgusting. Yeah. It's sad from an animal welfare standpoint that you would do that to an animal. Right. Just from neglect or, you know, whatever, it's sad. But it was sad. But it was. Martin and his father who took on the job of, you know, cleaning up this house. And it was reported that it took them three months to get rid of all the debris, scrub this house down. That's how filthy it was. To get it back to livable condition. It was a three month job. After the death of Helen's mother, the relationship between Helen and Martin turned into kind of more of a friendship. I think it had been going that way. But it really kind of blossomed when Martin moved into the St. Clair home with Helen. Now, there are some reports that he wanted to get away from his parents. He was having trouble. They were fighting. Martin would later tell a psychiatrist that Helen was the only true friend

he ever had. Keep in mind, the age difference here is, is pretty vast. Right. But he added, it was never a sexual relationship. And I think he looked at her not only as a friend, but a mentor, you know, somebody to give guidance. They were companions. They spent their day shopping and eating at restaurants. And Helen probably viewed it as, okay, here's this young, strapping, you know, good looking guy.

He does stuff around the house, but I'm lonely. My mother has passed away. way, he's willing to spend time with me, go shopping with me, eat with me. Well, she has to do is pick up the tap. Yeah. And she has no problem doing that. She's got the mind to do that. I think she was happy to spend it on Martin or with Martin, you know, however you

want to look at it. They bought a bunch of cars. Essentially, they did whatever they wanted to do. For some reason, Helen was really into cars. I read somewhere where she bought 50 cars over, you know, like, a span of a number of years. She would keep one for like a week and then turn it in, buy something else. Well, when you have that type of money, you can do that.

She just really dug cars, I guess. But Helen wanted to move to a more rural location. I don't think she was happy about not being allowed to keep a lot of animals around. She obviously had a real affection for animals. So in 1991, Martin scouted and found a 70-acre farm in Copping, and the two moved there. They started buying all kinds of pets. Neighbors there later noted how odd the pair was. They said that Martin started walking around wearing a silk cravat.

Really? A cravat. Yeah. As though he was Lord of the Manor at this little farm. Yeah. And apparently it was not unusual. for the pair to load up animals in one of their cars and drive into town on a shopping spree. People said that they would walk by the car and there would be a whole bunch of dogs,

cats crammed into the car. One person said they at one time saw a miniature pony inside the car. Miniature pony. I mean, those things are cute. My little pony. Miniature ponies are cute for sure. But I can't imagine. I'm putting one in your back seat.

Yeah. Hey, just wait. We're going to go in here. We're going to eat lunch. Yeah. We'll be back. Yeah. So, you know, cramming all these animals into a car wouldn't work today.

I mean, I can't imagine if you pulled into the shopping center down the road here and the car was packed with animals that people aren't going to stop and break the glass and let the animals out. They're just not going to allow it. If they didn't call police within the first two seconds, then they would break the glass. and get the animals out. Right, yeah. So these were kind of quirky things, right? But there were some dark details as well. Some neighbors said that there were altercations with Martin that he had with a number of

people and said to some, if you come back to the property again, I'll shoot you. Pretty direct, pretty menacing. Straightforward, yeah. Yeah, really mincing any words at that point. And, you know, apparently Martin always. kept his trusty air rifle with him, the present that his father had given him so many years before. And he never really did grow out of that habit of shooting at motorists as they passed by. A little hobby he liked to do, I guess. Yeah. I think he did it all his life. How dare you pass

in front of my property? I think one of the big thoughts here, Gibbs, is that once Martin got away from his parents' guidance, his behavior became even more erratic. I think his parents had tried to help ground him, keep him safe, keep him. Maybe restrain some of this. Yeah, whatever you want to call it his entire life. Well, now he's living with this woman who's like, hey, let's do whatever the hell we want. And probably not aware of all his issues. I actually think she was. But just said, Hey, you need to be you. Yes. I actually think she was very well aware of everything that, you know, he had going on.

And she was okay with it. And she was kind of like, hey, do your thing. Just encouraging him to be whoever he wanted to be. Yes. Now, I'm not sure if she was saying, hey, go shoot at motorists as they pass by. Right. I don't know if she knew about all that stuff. but she was very well aware of his limitations, some of the difficulties that he had.

And she understood them. I said she was okay with them. That's kind of a bad choice of words. But she wasn't putting him down or trying to hold him back, I guess, is the way that I looked at it. Well, I also think, you know, she's really enjoying this relationship. And she probably didn't want to do anything to jeopardy. She didn't want to be alone, probably. Now, there's one very important thing about Martin Bryant receiving a disability pension. To continue to get his benefits, he was required to be assessed

by mental health professionals. And one assessment read, Father protects him from any occasion which might upset him as he continually threatens violence. Martin tells me he would like to go around shooting people. It would be unsafe to allow Martin out of his parents' control. Well, he's out of his parents' control. He is. And, you know, it also goes back to what I talked about saying there were a number of people, right, that saw signs that this guy was most likely capable of doing something very bad.

Right. In this situation, he literally came out and said. I would like to go around shooting people. Yeah. So, you know, at that point, what do you do? I get it. There's doctor, patient confidentiality, and I don't know what it's like in Australia. I think here in the States, when you're in that type of situation, you're allowed or maybe

even required to alert authorities. I think there's an obligation. Yeah, I don't know exactly how it's stipulated or how what to require. requirement is. But even with, you know, if he's saying this, shouldn't the agency jumped in and said, you know what? We, we need to remove you from your current environment and take you to the hospital and see if we can help you with treatment. Yeah. Again, just one of the many things that people are going to point to and say, okay, there was a chance. There was a chance right there to do something and nobody he took it. Because, you know, he's not going to change because he doesn't need the disability

check anymore. He's living with somebody that's worth millions. But he did want to continue to receive them. Well, I get that, but he doesn't need them. No, he doesn't need it the way he did before. Right. So Gibbs, I talked about Martin and Helen buying, you know, all these cars, driving into town on shopping trips. What we haven't talked about yet is Helen's driving. She was apparently not a very good driver. And Martin never got his license. Although I think he did drive over the years, Helen had a number of car crashes while driving with Martin. Some reports have him grabbing the wheel and possibly even causing these crashes. Some people have thought it's almost like him playing the games he did when he was younger. Yeah. Jumping out of the bushes. Silly, silly Martin. Silly Martin. Oh, this is fun. I'm going to

grab the wheel and mess with you. And we end up getting in a car crash. On October 20th, 1992, the pair was returning home from a shopping trip in a white Mazda. They had a number of dogs in the backseat. I think they had three. Around 5 p.m. The white Mazda collided head on with another car. Helen Harvey was killed instantly, as were two of the dogs, while Martin Bryant suffered a broken neck, some fractured ribs, and a head injury. But the broken neck did not leave him paralyzed, didn't cause that type of damage to his spinal column. It was an injury from which he would recover. Again, many have speculated that Martin may have grabbed the wheel and caused this crash. Yeah, horsing around. But there was no investigation into

Helen's death and no one was ever charged. It was reported by the Sydney Morning Herald that Martin's father, Maurice, moved into the Harvey house and copping around 10 o'clock that night. And that was a move that neighbors found pretty strange. Considering the fact that his son was in critical condition in the hospital, eventually Martin recovered from the accident and found himself with a lot of money. Because Helen Harvey had updated her will in the year before her death, leaving everything to Martin Bryant. Wow. But, and this is a big but, she listed Maurice Bryant, Martin's father, as a co-executor and

trustee of the state. And this was a move that would put father and son at odds. You know, because in all the reporting that I saw Gibbs, and I think I mentioned it earlier, up to this point, the two of them had a very good relationship. But now you throw a bunch of money into the pot and that's going to change everything. Well, it can for some. As money often does. Yeah, that greed, man.

Maurice knew that Martin needed guidance. But my feeling is that Martin thought, hey, you know what? I'm an adult. Yeah. I've got this money now. I'm good, man. Yeah. I'm okay to be on my own.

don't need you. Yeah, back off. And this led to a lot of fighting between the two, with Maurice trying to tell us on what and what not to do. But in the fall of 1993, the fighting ended. Maurice Bryant drove to copping on August 13, 1993 for the weekend to see Martin. The very next day, a man came to the copping residence to pay for a horse float. I never really could figure out what horse float was, Gibbs.

You want to take a guess? Because I'm sure somebody's going to write in and tell us what it is, but do you want to take a guess? Yeah, I'll take a guess. I think the horse float is some kind of thing they used to pick up the horse shit. Oh, so you think it has to do with manure. Yeah. Yeah, I was thinking it was either a trailer that you load horses on.

That could be it. Or something that was pulled by a horse. Yeah. Who knows? It'd be interesting to find out what it was. Yeah. It could be something totally different. I always think like it's something we know of.

Yeah. It's just their terminology is different. Right. Instead of a trailer, they call it a float or something like that. I think you might be right on that, though. It sounds that of all the things that we just said, that makes them sense. Really? You don't want to stick with your horseshit theory?

Well, not now. No, not now. We'll find out. We'll find out. Yeah. And I say that because I'm imagining that they probably brought the horses over on horse floats from the mainland. And then when they came over, then they just went ahead and bumped them up on some axles and turn them into trailers.

Okay. There you go. So now you've completely changed. You've done a 180. But I do that with everything. Yeah. Now, the word float denotes water. So you might be on to something there.

Yeah. Who knows? Mensa, remember? Yeah. I always have to keep that in perspective. So I don't know if I mentioned it, but the horse float, Martin had advertised this in the newspaper. When this guy got to the door of the home, he found a note that read, called the police. So naturally, this guy reached out to authorities. They came out to the house

and they began searching the property. One neighbor said, you know, as the searches were going on, Martin was there. He was cutting the grass as if nothing was going on. It took them two days before they found the body of Maurice Bryant in a dam on the property, he was found face down with a weighted diver's belt slung around his torso. It sounded to me Gibbs like how you would wear a sash. Yeah. Or a bandalier, you know,

like in a movie where the bandit has the bandolier and it's got all of his bullets in it. I wear that all the time. Well, yeah. I mean, that's just... I don't have bullets in. I got my twizzlers in it. That's just your normal garb, but. Well, it's easy to get up to Twizzlers that way when you're at the movie theaters

and things like that. I know you like to go the outlaw of Gibby Wales as you move around town. You get some strange looks, though. AKA Rex West, yes. Yeah, exactly. But this is a big find, right? This is Martin's father dead in the water. Police didn't find any evidence of wounds on the body, but they did find like a blister

pack of sedatives and 18 of the tablets were missing. That could be telling. Yep. The coroner eventually ruled Maurice's death, drowning consistent with suicide. Now, later on, they reopened the case after the Port Arthur Massacre. But at the time, it was, you know, ruled a suicide and police kind of went on. But there are some interesting aspects to Maurice's death. and obviously a lot of speculation that Martin had a hand in his father's death.

Martin had twice visited doctors between the time of Helen's death and his father's death. And on at least one of those occasions, he had been prescribed medication. I don't believe it was the same medication as was found near his dad's body. But I think there's a lot of speculation. Okay, how hard would it have been for him to get his hands on the one that was found? Right. Maybe from the first doctor or he had some money by this point. He could have bought it off of somebody.

Could have been Helens. Could have been. Yeah, we don't know. It also came out that after he placed the advertisement in the newspaper, a number of people responded to it. And Martin told them that he was selling the advertisement. the horse float because his father had died. The problem is this was a month before his father died. So that's pretty suspicious. Yeah, that's really suspicious. There are also some reports that the weighted diver's belt found around Maurice's torso was Martins. So you could view that as suspicious.

There's like an old song. I think I've seen it on Saturday Live with about something suspicious. They keep saying suspicious over and over again, like in a repeated fashion. It's like a little chant song they do. I wish I could remember it. But it sounds like that would be appropriate here because everything seems suspicious. Are we talking new Saturday Night Live or older Saturday Night Live? I think like in between. In between the new and the old?

Yeah. I've watched a lot of Saturday Night Live and I'm not picking up on what you're putting down. Yeah. I wish I could remember how they kind of chant it. chant song it song chant okay yeah well somebody will write in on that one too yeah and then of course i think you know you have the reports that the two had been fighting martin was not happy that marice had you know at least some control over the money left to him by helen that's a pretty powerful motive for murder when you're talking about you know that much money certainly suspicious and very

suspicious. That's the word of the day on Sesame Street. Yeah. But after the coroner ruled that a suicide, there really wasn't much for the police to do, right? You don't have a homicide. What else are we supposed to do? The age reported that a suicide note and a wad of several thousand dollars was found in a car parked on the property. Martin's mother successfully petitioned to have his money placed with trustees. So basically a guardianship. So, he had at least someone looking out for him and he wouldn't blow through all this money. Yeah, because that's a possibility. It is.

And, you know, probably not too hard to win that petition given his background, given his IQ and given some of the diagnoses that that had been given over the years. Yeah. So I think when you look at this Gibbs, two of the really big forces in Martin's. life are dead. His father. Right. And Helen. Yeah. The people that kept him or did the best they could to keep him grounded. Yes. Tried to keep him in check. They're gone. Yeah. So, you know, at this point in his life, he's only 20-some years old. Yeah. He's kind of rudderless. He didn't really have any friends. I think Helen was his only true friend. He said that. He would go into town wearing these really odd

kind of garish outfits. And he would try to strike up conversations with workers at shops and restaurants. But mostly Gibbs, the reports I saw was that I think he was laughed at. People snickered at him behind his back because of the things he was wearing, his odd behavior. Right. And there are some people that are a little awkward when they try to talk with other people. and it's really easy to see. It's kind of hard not to see.

Right. I think he was one of those individuals. He didn't have those type of interpersonal skills that would allow him to shoot the breeze. Right. So the things that he would say in trying to strike up a conversation would be much different than what you would say to someone behind the deli counter, you know, about the weather or, hey, did you see that ball game? certainly wasn't natural. No, it was forced. He was trying to make something happen. Yeah. And people can pick up on that. Oh, sure. Kind of reminds me of the anchor man, you know,

when the new anchor comes in and they're all hitting on her and Steve Carell's character's trying to, right? And he's his saying, he's trying to fit in, but what he says makes no sense whatsoever. Yeah. Did you kill someone with the Trident? You still like that Cologne one. I do. Yeah. Because 60% of the time, it works every time. Exactly. Martin sold the farm and copping in 1994.

He used his newfound considerable wealth to travel all over the world. And I mean all over. Gibbs, he went to the U.S. He went to Europe, Japan, all these different countries. He traveled to mainland Australia as well. But he really enjoyed the longer flight. According to the Sydney Morning Herald, one professional who later talked with Bryant said, Mr. Bryant stated that the best part of his international trips was the long plane ride.

It was the attraction of him being able to speak to the people next to him who basically had no choice, but to converse because they were strapped into their seats and they had nowhere else to go. And we've all had that person, right? And if you haven't had that person, you are probably the person. You are that person. You know, but there's just people that just want, you're like, you want to be nice and you are nice. And then you're just like, but the conversation is still going. Why?

Yeah. But go back to when I said, you know, he would go into town. He would go into a shop and try to strike up a conversation. Yeah. Well, those people are busy. Sure. And pretty easy to get away from him. Yeah.

Because they've got another customer or they have something they have to do. do, but if you're on a flight from Australia to the U.S., that's a long time to be seated next to someone who is looking for someone to talk to. Yeah, this is their opportunity. Basically, he was able to, on these very long flights, to have a captive audience. Yeah. And it's sad. It is sad.

That that was his only opportunity to have that time. And it was later confirmed by police. You know, they tracked. down some of these passengers who had been seated next to Bryant on some of these flights and they basically corroborated what he had said. So Martin is on his own. He moved back to the St. Clair home where he had lived with Helen in Newtown. She never sold the house. You know, they bought, she had so much money. They bought this farm or she bought this farm in copping, but she kept the house. So when he sold the farm, he just moved back to this house.

He owned a number of cars because she had so many cars. He didn't have a license. He never got a license ever. Probably didn't really need one, really. If he's going to get in trouble, he probably just paid the fine and moved on. Yeah, I know at least one time he was, he got in trouble for driving without a license, but he mostly drove his father's yellow Volvo. And, you know, there was a lot made of this.

right this was a car that he was never allowed to drive while his father was a lot so you know if you go back and you look at his father's death yeah again a lot of speculation that martin bryant played a part in it had something to do with it even murdered his father not too far-fetched no i mean i think you can make the case that it's definitely possible now he's driving around in his yellow Volvo something he probably always wanted to drive, but his dad wouldn't let him. Look at me, dad. I'm driving your car. Now what?

You know, one thing that would come out about Martin Bryant was that his first sexual experiences were with escorts. Gibbs, apparently he was paying for escorts every month. He had the money. He did have the money. And again, I don't know when this started. Did it start after he had gobs of money? Did it start, you know, before then?

I don't know. He did have some girlfriends over the years. One was 16 years old. And I think she even accompanied him on some of his trips. So, you know, again, there was quite a age difference there. He was 20 some years old. Especially if he was able to get out of the country with him. Yeah, he was in his mid-20s probably at that point.

But I read that the girl's family knew of the relationship and they allowed it. It only ended because she got tired of him. Right. all that talking? Maybe. Now, we talked about Martin's penchant for carrying around his air rifle, right? Even into his 20s, he carried this air rifle around with him. In 1993, Martin Bryant bought his first real gun, an AR-10 semi-automatic rifle that he purchased in Tasmania through a newspaper at. In 1996, he purchased an AR-15. semi-automatic rifle and a 12-gauge shotgun.

He also began purchasing a large amount of ammunition. In the months leading up to the Port Arthur Massacre, Martin hired a gardener named Petra Wilmot. She soon became his girlfriend, stopped being his gardener at that point, and the two spent quite a bit of time together at his home. She later said she never saw the guns or ammunition. and Martin has said that he kept them inside a piano in the house. It's a good hiding place.

Yeah, I mean, he didn't want his girlfriend to see him. He didn't want other people that would come to the house to see all this stuff and question him about it. Martin took a shopping trip prior to his shooting rampage to buy a sports bag. And he told the salesperson, the bag needed to be strong enough to, carry a large amount of ammunition and even brought along a measuring tape to ensure that it was big

enough to hold his guns. So there's no doubt to me Gibbs that this is a guy who had been fascinated with guns and firepower. Right. Whether it be an air rifle, a firework, uh, whatever. Firepower, destruction, something that could destroy things. Yeah, if it was, she was, she shooting the air rifle at passing by vehicles or shooting a parrot in the head multiple times. Yeah, and I think this fascination had existed for a very long time. Unfortunately, his plans for what to do with his guns would take shape and would be unbelievably devastating. So all of this is leading us to the events that transpired on April 28, 1996 in Port Arthur.

That's a day that Australians will never forget, but we'll get to that in part two. So that's it for part one of the Martin Bryant, Port Arthur, Masker case. We've got a lot left in part two. You know, we've got the details of his actions leading up to the shootings, the details of the shootings, the aftermath. There are quite a few conspiracy theories that will dive into. two as well. So make sure you check out part two next week. We've got some voicemails, Gibbs. You want to check those out? Yes, hear them. Hi, Mike and Gibby. This is Angela from Texas. And I wanted to ask you a

question. Have y'all ever listened to yourself like on half the feed of your normal podcast? For some reason, my phone will just automatically go to half the feed. And it's so funny. Here's a little pick of it. You know, domestic. It's so funny. It reminds me of. Jack and Groundhog Day. Love you guys. Hope you're doing well. Hope your families are safe and happy and healthy and keep your own son taken. Kind of reminded me of that time, Will Ferrell got hit with that tranquilizer in that one movie. It was that old school. Old school. Where the guy from American Pie. Yes. That was funny. Yeah. I'm surprised that was half speed. That sounded like a tenth speed. It was so slow. Now, people always accuse me. of talking slow anyway. Right.

I've heard other people say they turn us up. Yeah. There are a lot of people that want to get through as many episodes, podcasts as they can. Right. And so they'll go like one and a quarter. They still get all the information. They just get it quicker. Yeah.

We're just speaking a lot of questions. Yeah. But, you know, I've done that before. You know, it's a little button. If you're on the iPad app, it's just a little button. and you can easily hit it. Now, I've had a lot of people email in saying, hey, I don't know what you guys are doing,

but you're recording at a slower speed. Yeah. And then they realize? No, no, I'm saying. Oh, you have to tell them. No, we haven't changed anything. You have hit the button that has slowed your podcast player down. That's some good weed, man.

Yeah. Put the weed away. That's good. Hey, Mike and Gibby. It's Aidan from Burling, Ontario, that might sound familiar. This is where the girl from the Paul Bernardo Killings was dumped and one was picked up, unfortunately.

But yeah, that was a really close-hitting story to my mom. She was the same age as one of them in the Niagara region around the time that she was that Chris and French was taken. So that's how I kind of got into you guys with that podcast. And I've been watching ever since. Just wanted to let you guys know you're doing a great job. I love everything you do. I'm going to have to go with Team Gibby, but I hope you guys well.

Have a great day. All right. Love it. Appreciate it. Yeah. And again, you know, I've said it before, but there's an episode. A lot of times for everyone, sometimes more than one, that hits close to home. Right.

Either because of the location is close to where they live, where they once lived, Or they or someone in their family knew a victim or even sometimes the killer or had a brush with the killer. Right, which is even more scary. Even scarier. Yeah. Hi, Megan Gibby. This is Eton calling all the way from Nigeria. I've never done this before, but I have been listened to your episodes during the pandemic.

And now that I have COVID and I'm isolating, I'm catching up. with T-CAT and T-CAT unsolved. Thank you so much for keeping occupied during my isolation. And if I could, I would like to suggest that you guys would an episode on Oscar Pistorius and Riba Stencombe. Thank you. Well, I hope you're feeling better at COVID-Is rough. Yep.

And you would know. And I kind of ask you. you if you could ask your Nigerian prince, where my money. I've been waiting for years. For years, I've been waiting for that, for that, for that deposit to come into my account. You're such a nice guy. You, you tried to help out the Nigerian prince. I did. So the Oscar Pistorius Rivas Steencamp case, very fascinating. I mean, I think very well known. People know a lot about it. It's on the list. I've always known we were going to cover it. Right. It's just when. Yeah. And, you know, kind of.

talked about the need for us to continue to go outside of the U.S. more and more we did today in this episode and next episode to Australia. But we will. And I know we'll cover that case at some point. Hey, Mike and Gibby. This is Jennifer Alamon. I'm calling from Nashville, Tennessee. I found your podcast about two months ago. And I've been binging on it to catch up. And I keep kind of jumping back and forth to old episodes and listening to new episodes. And just really enjoying it. I was especially glad to listen to the Richard Farley episode recently. I remember watching that movie back in the day and thinking how creepy Richard Thomas was, especially in comparison to John Boyd. And that movie kind of really sparked my interest in true crime

because I was, I want to say early high school when I walked it and thought, wow, I can't believe this is based on true story and real people actually do these things. But I really enjoy listening to you guys. The details you provide on the cases and the banter. hear you sprinkle in. It really makes listening enjoyable. So thanks for helping me stay saying during this time of COVID. And I'm so glad to hear that give you back and doing much better. So keep it up and keep your own time taking. Thanks, guys. Oh, great voicemail. We really appreciate that. Gives, I mean, just based on the voicemails and the emails that we get, we've picked up a lot of new listeners. Yeah. During COVID. Now, I do think there are people that have not been listening as much because,

like I said before in another episode they their routine was to listen on their drive into work right well if they're not commuting maybe they don't have that 30 minutes or hour to listen or their kids are around to them now yeah can't really listen to exactly my hope is that well first and foremost we get out of this pandemic that's the first and foremost but then once it's all done we've got these new listeners and hopefully they continue to listen. Our core older listeners catch up, come back as they start their commutes again and they're at work. Some people listen at work through headphones or whatever. But it's great. I mean, we always are happy to find out that new people are finding the podcast. I still get emails about what Dillon's is. So I know people are

listening to BTK at that point. Exactly. They're moving on. up. Yeah. But no mail back this week. No mail? Nope. No mail back this week. So that's it for part one of the Martin Bryant case and another episode of True Crime all the time. So for Mike and Gabby, stay safe and keep your own time ticking.