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Authors: James Morton
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blamed his defence lawyer RS Haynes, father of the great 1920s barrister Arthur Haynes, for failing to call, presumably as an alibi, a Chinaman whose name he did not know, and complained that Harry Mann had rigged the case against him, breaking his alibi. He concluded, âNot too tight, gentlemen, I am going, goodbye.â
Things went from bad to worse. By the time Espada and Marquez were brought to the scaffold, they were quarrelling. All this thoroughly unnerved the hangman. He failed to properly secure Espada, who nowmanaged to work his hands free, and tried to clutch the rope to haul himself up it. Nor did the hangman notice that Chief Warden Webster, who was acting as his assistant, had his foot on the trapdoor, so that when it opened he fell through, seriously injuring himself. By now, the hangman, who had also put the knot in the rope under Espadaâs chin instead of under his ear, was âterribly affected and cried like a childâ.
In December that year, a diver from Manila, Victor Nabor, was sentenced at the Broome Sessions to three yearsâ imprisonment for receiving a pearl knowing it to have been stolen. The pearl was found on a lugger and weighed 41 grains. Almost a perfect pearl, Nabor hid it in a coil of rope when the police searched the lugger, and afterwards it was stolen from its hiding place by some other person unknown. It is believed that this was the gem Leibglid had expected to buy the night he was murdered.
The story goes that the pearl then passed into the hands of a Chinaman who committed suicide and then into those of a Rabbi Davis. He drowned when the
Koombana
went down in a storm off Port Hedland in March 1912, and so the pearl acquired its nickname. It was never seen again .
Jewey Freeman and Shiner Ryan Raise the Bar
4
In the autumn of 1914 Samuel âJeweyâ Freeman and Ernest Joseph âShinerâ Ryan began to plan what would be one of New South Walesâs most famous crimesâthe Eveleigh Railway Workshops robbery, a wages snatch at their factory in Redfern. This would be the first time in Australian criminal history a getaway car was used. Prior to that, escape had been on foot, on a racehorse or with a horse and buggy. In America in 1909 a car had been used in a robbery for the first time in Santa Clara, California, the men having hijacked a car and fled. Members of the public chased the car in their own vehicles, and when it broke down, the robbers were captured. In France, the anarchic Bonnot Gang had used motor cars from 1911 and there had been sporadic use of cars in England. Now it was Australiaâs turn.
Both Ryan and Freeman had rich criminal pedigrees. The dark-haired, blue-eyed, 5-foot-4-inch Ryan, robber and safecracker and undoubtedly South Australiaâs greatest criminal of the early part of the twentieth century, was born around 1885. Women who found him attractive thought his face glowed; less spiritually, he had body-wide tattoos, including a cross, an anchor, a pierced heart, the word love and a flag. In 1902 in Adelaide he was convicted of larceny, and sentenced to a birching and to being kept in a reformatory until he was eighteen. He escaped within a month but was recaptured at Broken Hill and received three months for vagrancy.
The idea of detaining him until he was eighteen must have foundered because, convicted of housebreaking at Gladstone, he wasreleased on a £100 bond the next year. He then went east and was in Sydney when, in 1904, he served three months for theft. Back west, in Fremantle, in August 1905 he received two years and four months for stealing and receiving. This time, he had been convicted with New Zealand-born Henry Lewis, also known as James âJeweyâ Mackay. The 5-foot-2-inch bootmaker had been in Western Australia since 1902, and had already served two sentences for theft and assaults on police.
In 1909 Ryan was one of the suspects in the murder of Constable William Hyde, shot and killed on 2
Things went from bad to worse. By the time Espada and Marquez were brought to the scaffold, they were quarrelling. All this thoroughly unnerved the hangman. He failed to properly secure Espada, who nowmanaged to work his hands free, and tried to clutch the rope to haul himself up it. Nor did the hangman notice that Chief Warden Webster, who was acting as his assistant, had his foot on the trapdoor, so that when it opened he fell through, seriously injuring himself. By now, the hangman, who had also put the knot in the rope under Espadaâs chin instead of under his ear, was âterribly affected and cried like a childâ.
In December that year, a diver from Manila, Victor Nabor, was sentenced at the Broome Sessions to three yearsâ imprisonment for receiving a pearl knowing it to have been stolen. The pearl was found on a lugger and weighed 41 grains. Almost a perfect pearl, Nabor hid it in a coil of rope when the police searched the lugger, and afterwards it was stolen from its hiding place by some other person unknown. It is believed that this was the gem Leibglid had expected to buy the night he was murdered.
The story goes that the pearl then passed into the hands of a Chinaman who committed suicide and then into those of a Rabbi Davis. He drowned when the
Koombana
went down in a storm off Port Hedland in March 1912, and so the pearl acquired its nickname. It was never seen again .
Jewey Freeman and Shiner Ryan Raise the Bar
4
In the autumn of 1914 Samuel âJeweyâ Freeman and Ernest Joseph âShinerâ Ryan began to plan what would be one of New South Walesâs most famous crimesâthe Eveleigh Railway Workshops robbery, a wages snatch at their factory in Redfern. This would be the first time in Australian criminal history a getaway car was used. Prior to that, escape had been on foot, on a racehorse or with a horse and buggy. In America in 1909 a car had been used in a robbery for the first time in Santa Clara, California, the men having hijacked a car and fled. Members of the public chased the car in their own vehicles, and when it broke down, the robbers were captured. In France, the anarchic Bonnot Gang had used motor cars from 1911 and there had been sporadic use of cars in England. Now it was Australiaâs turn.
Both Ryan and Freeman had rich criminal pedigrees. The dark-haired, blue-eyed, 5-foot-4-inch Ryan, robber and safecracker and undoubtedly South Australiaâs greatest criminal of the early part of the twentieth century, was born around 1885. Women who found him attractive thought his face glowed; less spiritually, he had body-wide tattoos, including a cross, an anchor, a pierced heart, the word love and a flag. In 1902 in Adelaide he was convicted of larceny, and sentenced to a birching and to being kept in a reformatory until he was eighteen. He escaped within a month but was recaptured at Broken Hill and received three months for vagrancy.
The idea of detaining him until he was eighteen must have foundered because, convicted of housebreaking at Gladstone, he wasreleased on a £100 bond the next year. He then went east and was in Sydney when, in 1904, he served three months for theft. Back west, in Fremantle, in August 1905 he received two years and four months for stealing and receiving. This time, he had been convicted with New Zealand-born Henry Lewis, also known as James âJeweyâ Mackay. The 5-foot-2-inch bootmaker had been in Western Australia since 1902, and had already served two sentences for theft and assaults on police.
In 1909 Ryan was one of the suspects in the murder of Constable William Hyde, shot and killed on 2
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