by Mary W Maxwell, PhD, LLB
I have just read that Sue Neill-Fraser (of the Bob Chappell murder case) is being dealt with in an odd way at Risdon Prison. Pardon me but it’s “nice” to hear about another human being down there, other than Martin Bryant.
I will present the item about Sue in a moment but please allow me to talk about Gumshoe’s relationship to the matter of the 1996 “PAM” — Port Arthur massacre.
As is recounted in a book co-authored by myself and Dee McLachlan, entitled Port Arthur: Enough Is Enough, I got into the case because of the Adelaide Fringe. I wanted to put on a play that would allow people talk about 9-11 and then it expanded to include PAM.
Soon, in writing about the Fringe experience at Gumshoe, I started to gather more information, as one naturally does. Being the type of person who doesn’t like to see crazy things go unchallenged I then started to challenge the case. But I am not a lawyer. I am a law graduate and I can see what’s going on but I can’t get my foot in the door of Court.
Legal Efforts
I tried a little trick called The Writ of Error Coram Nobis. It can be done by a layperson. It shows the court where a fraud-upon-the-court has occurred. The Tassie Supreme Court wrote back to me that Tassie does not traffic in coram-nobises. After more research I found that Tassie does traffic in that product and wrote back to them to explain. No reply to date.
Another possible hope for overturning Martin Bryant’s conviction arose when the Attorney General of Tasmania – the wonderful, young Vanessa Goodwin, who now has brain cancer – brought in new legislation. She copied a law from South Australia that allows a case to be re-opened if there is “fresh and compelling evidence.”
Although we at Gumshoe discussed how this can work for Bryant, no lawyer, or member of Tassie parliament took it up. But luckily, another person in Risdon Prison, Sue Neill-Fraser, saw the new law as being her best hope. Her case is now in court and she is offering fresh evidence. It will resume in March.
Model Prisoner
On November 20, 2017, the Hobart Mercury carried a story about Ms Neill-Fraser. It says she is doing a hunger strike to protest her re-assignment to a cell near to that of a woman (Nancy Keefe) who is charged with perverting the course of justice in the Bob Chappell murder case! That’s Sue’s case — she is accused of throwing her husband off a yacht and has been incarcerated for the last 8 years.
The cause of her being moved to a new cell is that the prison officers searched her cell and found contraband, including a child’s craft scissors “which had been approved.” Some of Sue’s advocates think the motive behind this is to make Sue lose her current rating as a model prisoner.
Maybe they thought she would have a spat with the prisoner in the nearby cell, Ms Keefe, who is awaiting trial. Can you imagine. Anyway, Sue’s lawyer has told her to avoid the lady.
The reason I bring Sue Neill-Fraser into my writings about PAM is simply as a tool to get any possible leverage over Martin Bryant’s situation. Any port in a storm, so to speak. I don’t think the Neil-Fraser family would object, as, indeed, information can flow both ways.
(I’ve mentioned that when I was in Launceston in 2017 someone whispered to me that the Bob Chappell issue has to do with police involvement with drugs.)
Need a Leader for the PAM Thing
Just two days ago, a man from the mainland, who wishes to not be identified, emailed me to ask what’s doin’ with Martin. This made me realize that I am seen as a leader in the matter. But I don’t want that job. I feel ridiculous posing as a prisoner’s savior. My beef is with the government, the judiciary, the legal profession, and the whole society. I want Australia, not Mary Maxwell, to fix this problem up.
So I hereby ask if you (anyone) will take up the leadership. I believe Stewart Beattie was the leader in the past. He wrote Port Arthur: A Gunsmith’s Notebook. It is only in electronic form and is catalogued at State Library of Tasmania. Beattie has not replied to my letters.
Beattie’s book is a superb investigation of all the facts of the PAM. Anyone who reads it will feel like storming the Bastille (Risdon) to get Martin out. And they may as well drag Sue out into the bargain, as her case seems to have used the same methods. Oops and they might as well drag Jahar out of Supermax – but I’ll leave that aside for now.
Other leaders in the PAM case include Andrew Macgregor a retired cop, Terry Shulze a retired barrister, Wendy Scurr a worker on the site when the massacre took place, Cherri Bonney who did a change.org petition and also recorded a very moving song. And there’s Greely a rap artist, and Mal Hughes who kept up a campaign of letter writing for years – such as to the Governor General and to Dick Smith.
Keep Trying
I tried all sorts of side-door entries to the case, including dealing with the Guardianship board, the Prison Visitor, etc. And I think Mrs Carleen Bryant is kept out of public contact. (You can email her, but who’s to say the reply comes from the real Carleen.)
I admit I did not do much — and more or less adopted the attitude that “they” are ruthless and do not feel the least bit accountable to the public, so why bother?
I’m no playwright, but I felt “forced to write a play.” I am grateful to the Fringe for letting me put on the “Moot Court Trial for Martin Bryant” in 2017. The script and stage directions are public domain. Anyone can put this on locally. Imagine if all law students in Oz would do it – and it’s quite entertaining.
Meanwhile Dee McLachlan created an excellent 10-minute video about Port Arthur. She plans to do more in the film department regarding Bryant. But I hasten to add that she doesn’t want to be the leader any more than I do. Both of us are deeply involved in other things. There are millions of people who could help undo the damage of Port Arthur.
Speaking of which, the damage of Port Arthur includes the way in which we have gone to sleep over these things. But it also includes 35 unsolved murders, plus the crime of the Grievous Bodily Harm done to Martin Brant that day.
All you need to do to get those cases re-opened is file a Police Complaint – or “lay an information” asking that charges be laid against such-and-such a person. So go on, do it. It’s perfectly legal.
Why Don’t Y’all “Go To Alabama”?
It drives me nuts to see who is in Parliament in Australia and who is in Congress in America. And you may know I even attempted to get into Congress myself. It was a struggle insofar as the media would show up at our “candidate forums” and resolutely film only the speeches made by the Big Three. Even if I had had money to buy TV ads, the MSM would have found ways to defeat me.
But if a lot of good people – a ton of good people — would run for any open seat in any legislature, we would be a force to be reckoned with. I want 2018 to be the year in which many people who don’t feel they are qualified to run for office will run for office.
Who the hell is “qualified”? Look at the members of Tasmanian legislature, or Massachusetts legislature – they are ALL participating in horrible things. Do you consider them “qualified”?
Take my advice. Read this interview that John Avery, solicitor for Martin Bryant, conducted with his client. Then read it aloud to your family and friends. They will not only refrain from criticizing you, they will beg you to run for office.
Last Call for Help from Students of Journalism and Media
The editor of this excellent journal, Dee McLachlan — a filmmaker by trade — has put out a request for media students to work as interns for Gumshoe. You could betake yourself to the trial of Sue Neill-Fraser which will resume in Hobart in March 2018. Come on, you can’t go wrong, it’s the trial of a woman who almost certainly did not murder her dear spouse.
You plan to have a career in journalism? This will clinch your curriculum vitae. The pay is lousy. Actually the pay is non-existent. But airfares from Victoria are very cheap ($55 on March 7, as of today) and there’s always the ferry.
Now is the time for all good men to come to the aid of the party — as Patrick Henry once said, in regard to another matter. And please hurry.
We are waiting for you.
–Mary W Maxwell is the author of Fraud Upon the Court: Reclaiming the Law, Joyfully (Trine Day, 2015)
There was also a very useful book by Harry Perks (now deceased?). It compares PAM to other terror events. I don’t recall the title and there’s no author with that name at worldcat.org, so I may be wrong on the spelling.
What! You haven’t yet read Genug Ist Genug? Here it is:
https://gumshoenews.com/books/
I have just been advised that a man named Paul Moder runs a Facebook page that tells of his efforts to make a movie called – WASP, Port Arthur.
Moder apparently thinks Martin was hypnotized into doing the Broad Arrow Café killings. I disagree. While it is VERY TRUE that MK-Ultra people have been trained to carry out murder (and it’s blocked from their memory), I believe Bryant was defo NOT PRESENT in the Broad Arrow on April 28, 1996.
Do I think Martin received some MK-Ultra-type handling? Yes. Perhaps that’s what made him an accommodating patsy.
Lately in my Boston work, I emphasize that the Tsarnaev boys were very likely not in attendance at the 2013 Marathon. I know that makes people doubt my sanity, but I think it is true. (Possibly Jahar attended the 2012 Marathon, which could be the source of the pix.)
Mary, re MK-Ultra type training of Bryant. It has been reported (forget where) that he traveled overseas on several flights before the PAM. If it really was Bryant, then it is unlikely he traveled without a minder along, openly or no.
I fail to see a necessity for international travel to undergo CIA or Tavistock-type conditioning, but it provides a plausible reason, or was Martin just a keen tourist? Have these trips been investigated by anyone with the means to do so? Just wondering.
Mary, I did not intend to infer that Martin Bryant’s role in the PAM was as anything other than a patsy. Most likely intended to be as a dead patsy, as Gumshoe has previously stated.
Why the international trips then, was it even Bryant himself as the Jetsetter, or his ‘evil twin’ acquiring or honing relevant skills?
I don’t know exactly what it is, the trial by media part of it, but the Azaria Chamberlain incident has a unique twist. Media claims 7 day Aventis cult may have sacrificed Azaria(means sacrifice in the desert according to Ruperts daily paper (maybe Fairfax but they both went long). Endless speculation. Then the court case , show trail with the court accepting scientific fraud.
Azaria is never found . How can no trace be found. The bit of clothing found 3 years later is hard to believe that lead to acquital.
I like many start to think pedo sacrificial groups could not exist, back then.
I dont think the Chamberlains if involved could have acted alone, easily be patties.
For a Tavistock programmer, amazing to watch if organic, but it has feel of organisation, to probe our willingness for pitch forks (which turned out to be the same as Salem witch burners).
Simon, the Chamberlain case was about the Ranger’s dog/dingo crossbreed that took Azaria. It had tried to drag another child off earlier, but was stopped. The Ranger was told to get rid of the animal, but he didn’t – then it took Azaria.
The Aboriginal trackers knew the animal’s prints and tracked it for a while. They found where it had put down Azaria from the imprint of the diaper. The even found a dried baby turd. All that evidence was withheld .
The Northern Territory government was looking at criminal prosecutions and a hit to the tourist trade. So, they decided to ‘strap up’ the mother as a way out of the problem.
I went to the Morling Inquiry and listened to some of the evidence. I couldn’t believe it, how could this thing have even gone to trial, let alone lead to a conviction. The media played a big part in the whole affair.
The masses in Oz are puppets to the corrupt media. Even after the Inquiry, the Pardon and the compensation – there are still zombies that believe Lindy killed her baby.
Fast forward to the Port Arthur Massacre and you can find the same kind of zombies babbling the MSM narrative about the massacre. Their brains have been fried, they can’t process the information. – And these same dumbf–ks are continuing to breed. God help us…
Thanks Terry, had not heard that, fits well though. But would the trackers have not found more. Not sure the distance of their campsite to the lair . Do you think a cover up of more material that could have given burial and closure is likely. I can easily see a dog doing this.
I do a triple take on missing children now.
MSM ran hard and fast on this in unision unworried about consequences of perverting justice or of damages, like they had the nod, like Port Arthur without photoshoped gimlit eyes, but they picked the most damaging images to support the narrative, daily.
How to deal with officials whose vision doesn’t go beyond the biggest perceived fear in the room: Create a bigger one perhaps ?
1 And he spake a parable unto them to this end, that men ought always to pray, and not to faint;
2 Saying, There was in a city a judge, which feared not God, neither regarded man:
3 And there was a widow in that city; and she came unto him, saying, Avenge me of mine adversary.
4 And he would not for a while: but afterward he said within himself, Though I fear not God, nor regard man;
5 Yet because this widow troubleth me, I will avenge her, lest by her continual coming she weary me.
LUKE 18
Thanks, Berry. We should do a lot more wearying.
An ex-prisoner told me (when I said Bryant can’t receive mail) that if you keep sending letters to the prison, on one day there’s bound to be a new employee who doesn’t know the rules and will hand the bloke the mail.
Might as well go whole hog with Luke 10:28 here, Berry. In the entire Bible the phrase that most knocks me over is “And who is my neighbor?”
I just found this commentary by Adam Clarke:
“But our Lord shows here, that the acts of kindness which a man is bound to perform to his neighbor when in distress, he should perform to any person, of whatever nation, religion, or kindred, whom he finds in necessity. As the word πλησιον signifies one who is near, Anglo Saxon, he that is next, this very circumstance makes any person our neighbor whom we know; and, if in distress, an object of our most compassionate regards. If a man came from the most distant part of the earth, the moment he is near you he has a claim upon your mercy and kindness, as you would have on his, were your dwelling-place transferred to his native country.
“It is evident that our Lord uses the word πλησιον (very properly translated neighbor, from nae or naer, near, and buer, to dwell) in its plain, literal sense. Any person whom you know, who dwells hard by, or who passes near you, is your neighbor while within your reach.”
I found this oddment on the FB of the sue support group. Seems to be a reprint from The Australian. Hmm:
Two people have been charged and Tasmania Police — now viewing the hundreds of hours of footage seized in the Sydney raid — have flagged the potential for further charges.
Neill-Fraser, 62, is serving 23 years for the murder of her long-time partner, Hobart radiation physicist Bob Chappell, on board their yacht, the Four Winds, on or about Australia Day 2009.
Acting on behalf of Tasmania Police, a NSW detective with a warrant seized CJZ footage of interactions between people potentially caught up in the investigation, which police allege involves a plot to present false evidence to Neill-Fraser’s current appeal application.
The Australian understands the footage was sourced from filmmaker Eve Ash’s company, Seven Dimensions. Ms Ash has interviewed a number of people claiming to have new information about Chappell’s disappearance, while another filmmaker and former policeman, Colin McLaren, has helped dig up allegedly new information.
Last month, Neill-Fraser’s Supreme Court appeal bid heard evidence from Meaghan Elisabeth Vass that on April 27 this year she signed a “false” statutory declaration — saying she was on the yacht on the night of the murder — after being threatened she would be “put in car boot” if she did not sign.
Ms Vass told the court she was threatened by another woman, Karen Patricia Nancy Keefe. Ms Keefe has pleaded not guilty to charges of perverting justice and corrupting a witness by accepting cash and benefits “in consideration for an understanding” that Ms Vass give false evidence.
I think Justice Blow, if abc report is correct and the reason for the murder conviction, were to gain financially is odd. He would know that a marriage (de facto) would have found a half split regardless of anything in family law and probably more.
The police should explain how Ms Vale could not be a suspect, given her DNA(i assume blood) were found onboard. If she were to be just camping out on the vessel, police would have gone a homeless trespasser. Not accussing her just saying.
I am now very curious as to the identity of man 57.
I notice the abc
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-10-30/susan-neill-fraser-bob-chappell-death/8815714
story has a young vibrant looking wife image and the murdered husband is made to look old and nearly infirm. He sailed to Sydney at some point and that takes some fitness. My point being that they still are trying to paint her a black widow or similar.
Note, in a previous article I said Bob Chappell was a radiologist. No, he is a radiation physicist.
Also, Simon, he not only was “fit” — he may still be fit as no one found the body.
No body , no motive , no murder weapon , original sentence life .
They protest to much (the sentencers, not public protesters).
http://www.australianmissingpersonsregister.com/BobChappell.htm
Bob puts off retirement to finish project. Wonder what that was, radiation treatment has not changed in decades, if you look at the patients not the industry that is minutes from a cure if only had a little more money.
Sorry my link contains alot of detail, it does say the project was a quality assurance manual . Maybe the quality is the issue.
And now more news from van demons land (love Tassie). Leading the world, and could have helped this case.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-01-07/long-range-wifi-to-track-dementia-patients-and-help-farmers/9308296
Now how do I make a proposition , law .
Feel Melissa Fyfe could help re Martin Bryant-tassie sub culture Tavistock’s Dax’s input
I recall reading an article in the Saturday Age Good Weekend July 1 2017
“Looking for Troy”-by Melissa Fyfe
“What makes a 15 year old kill his entire family?
On November 3 a 15-year old Tasmanian schoolboy shot dead his father mother and younger brother
Three decades on, a former classmate of the killer attempts to find out why.”
This 15 year old lived in a small town north west tassie- think it all happened 1989.
Melissa Fyfe visited Risden prison and speaks of Martin– she followed up what happened with Troy and almost got an interview with him.
Dear Diane,
I recall Daniel Maxhelau in Canada killing his mom, dad, and sis, though no previous trouble at all. He was a 27-yr old accountant for Bechtel Corp. That was in 2004 I think.
I also recall Gunther Russbacher’s explanation for how this is done. I mean he told us how the CIA accomplish the amazing ability to get you to kill someone you love.
Still, when I read that the latest terrorist killer (“Adam Lanza”) has shot his mom before going on a shoot-out, I tend to think it did not happen at all, but is used to persuade us that this kid is capable of anything.
Charles Whitman in the 1960s, one of the first mass shooters (from the Uni tower in Texas) allegedly killed both his parents before the incident. I doubt it is true. [But I am sure the Maxhelau case is true. Note: he did not then go on to do a mass killing.]
What of Jimmy Gargasoulas supposedly stabbing his brother that morning, pre-donuts?
This is very serious stuff. Thank you for the Tavistock tip, Diane. We need to negotiate with Tavistock. Or should I say they need to negotiate with us.
Oops, I googled for Maxheleau and see that the employer’s name is listed as KPMG not Bechtel.
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/ottawa-man-charged-with-murder-of-3-family-members/article977171/
Love that last sentence!
This is the last line of my latest letter to the State AG:
“If you wish to make an offer I suggest that you do so expediently”.
Lovely, Berry, but a friend of mine has just written to me to say “Their egos are too big.”
Now that’s a problem. Maybe on a par with the considerable problem of egos not being big enough….
Berry, in order for them to come to us, we need a TRC-type thing. A store front. Maybe in a Westfield mall?
There are some downtown luncheonettes that close at 2pm. Their premises could be borrowed for evening amnesty sessions. “Come forward, we will protect you. We will forgive you. Everybody needs a fresh start, and this current system is going badly for everyone.”
Remember: humans are problem solvers. Somebody invented the wheel, didn’t they?
https://www.facebook.com/GoldenGlobes/videos/1884721461569863/
my life feels scripted–this event feels scripted orchestrated–is it all an illusion
are we all acting out are parts
a powerful profound speech —“now we have become the story”-“we have uncovered an absolute truth”-“do not turn a blind eye-no more secrets and lies”
Mary the article I am about to post has nothing to do with this article but I wanted to make sure you have seen it. https://www.azcentral.com/story/news/local/arizona-investigations/2018/01/08/cliven-bundy-ranch-standoff-case-retried-federal-court-ruling/1008051001/ This judge was able to see through the federal prosecutors and their ability to prosecute with no evidence.