We're gonna need a bigger boat.
Two, three.
That was really good. Yay!
That was solid.
No, I pull it in my palms.
I know.
So now we can do a thing.
Are we legit?
It's so legit.
Too legit to quit.
That was funny.
Alrighty.
Let's do this.
Yeah.
Are we on?
Yeah.
It is on like a prawn that yams it down.
Oh, I was just gonna say it's on like Donkey Kong.
That's the cooler version.
Mine was the Andy from the office version.
Oh, that's right.
Which is the Cornell version.
Yes.
Should we...
Oh, sorry, go ahead.
What were you gonna say?
I was like, should we introduce ourselves?
Yes.
Okay.
I'm Olivia.
Oh, yeah.
Let's switch it up.
And I'm Drew.
And we are...
Oddly curious.
And then the La Norder sound.
I don't know why that opening makes me pause every time.
I'm like, hmm.
But we've only done it eight times.
Nine times.
Nine.
This is our ninth time.
Nine times.
Woohoo.
I feel like next episode should be something big
because it's the first milestone.
I think so.
Well, to be determined.
Yeah, to be milestoneed.
What?
No.
Yeah, that's exciting.
I wonder if 10 is not a milestone for a lot of people,
but for us, I feel like it's a big deal.
It's just like a nice, good round two-digit number.
Mm-hmm.
I think it is.
I think it's good.
Thinking back already to my first episode
and thinking this is awkward.
Yeah.
I mean, sometimes I still am like, wow, this is awkward,
but at least not that awkward.
Mm-hmm.
Because I think I get overly aware of the microphone
and I forget to be natural.
Mm-hmm.
I'm like, oh, I've got to be on.
But that's the thing about podcasts.
You can just be yourself.
Yes.
And how is yourself?
How are you?
Myself is good.
Yesterday, I did some stand-up paddle boarding
without the standing.
Very nice.
I did some sit-down paddle boarding.
That's my jam right now.
Mm-hmm.
Not my, not paddle boarding my jam, just sitting down.
I mean, I do like standing,
but it's hard to stand on a paddle board.
I'm still not good at it.
Yeah, I bet.
And this is my first time doing it this summer,
hoping I can do it again.
Because summer is already going away.
Summer is like, blink and you miss it.
And I'm like, no, you're my favorite season.
Well, it's kind of like you get the summer FOMO
where you're like scrambling by August
and you're like, I didn't do anything.
Yeah, I'm like, I need to do all the things,
but also I'm tired.
I'm so tired.
Yeah.
We're just tired.
Yeah, my favorite thing has been just like
lizard time out on the porch in the sun.
Just sitting there with Henry and he gets really happy
when I go out on the porch with him.
So it's good for both of us.
Yeah.
We've also been letting Greg be out on the porch
because before he was kind of a cooped up inside door baby.
Yeah.
But we're like, oh right, you're an adult now.
So he goes out on the porch and stares at birds.
Oh, that's cute.
Yeah.
We like to lizard time all of us.
Yeah.
It's like pretty much that and just swimming every now
and then is my jam.
Mm-hmm.
I still haven't been in your pool.
I know.
I'm excited.
You still need to just come over earlier or if it could be
after we record too.
Okay.
Just a day when I'm not working.
Yeah.
Right.
Yeah, I have a new beach ball that I really want to bring
over and I bought it at work because I periodically will work
at the hospital and hospitals have the funnest,
randomest stuff at gift shops.
Yes, they do.
Yeah.
And I found a big beach ball that's called major cat.
It's supposed to be like, oh, it's major Tom cat.
Oh.
And it's an astronaut helmet with a cat's head inside.
That's so cute.
So I'm like, I just, I need that.
I literally saw it in the window and I was like,
I would like this beach ball please.
That's adorable.
Yeah.
I'm like, I'm going to the hospital.
Who knew?
But other than that, no, I'm not doing anything.
No.
Just enjoying the sun.
Yeah.
We can.
Yeah.
Truly.
And we've had a reprieve in the hotness.
Like it was extremely hot and now it's like mildly hot.
Yeah.
We're like a mildly hot, we're like a Taco Bell hot right now.
Oh, like it's not.
Yeah.
I made sense in my head.
I did make sense.
It just took me a minute.
I don't know.
But yeah, that's me.
And speaking of summer and water activities.
What?
Our episode today.
Oh yeah.
Your face was saying so much and my brain was like, I don't know.
I don't know what you're saying.
My face was saying, I'm excited.
I'm excited.
Yeah.
We're really excited because we both really like.
Sharks.
And we both really like.
Jaws.
And if you know us, we really like.
Quint and chief Brody.
Yes.
But not.
Richard Dreyfus.
No.
He's just there, but we.
We just like Brody and Quint and we put up with Dreyfus.
I like how we're calling him by his real name.
I guess it's Uber, right?
Yeah.
Hooper.
That's right.
And also.
It's going to be shark week soon.
Yes.
Which is why we are shark themed today.
Yes.
We made drinks, special shark drinks.
That are.
Baja blast.
Greta.
Malibu.
Um, grenadine.
And gummy sharks.
And you put them in a cup and they all become one.
Like there's no, I don't know how people layer very easily.
I don't know.
I.
I'm not good at that.
I'm not a professional bartender.
So I know that it's like, there's probably like, like,
viscosity of.
Liquid and how.
What's heavier than what?
And I'm like, that's too hard for me.
I'm like, I just.
Pour it all together.
Yeah.
Cause it tastes good just because it looks like pink water.
It actually has.
A lot of yummy things in it.
Yeah.
It's, I mean, it looks like what.
The water would look like after.
Shark attack.
Yeah.
But we both have two.
Floating dead sharks in our drink.
We do.
They died happy.
The gummy sharks don't float so good.
But they're delicious.
They are delicious.
And then Olivia was kind enough to get us some lobster gummies.
So we have like a.
A shark theme and then our jaws theme.
Cause to me, Cape Cod is kind of like where she.
Is kind of like where she jaws is and that's a very Cape Cod thing.
Yes.
That's like my favorite thing that comes out in Trader Joe's in the summer is their lobster
gummies.
Oh yeah.
That's a Trader Joe's.
Joe's has the best stuff.
Yeah.
I was like, I think the first time I got them was a few years ago when we watched Jaws
together and we had Rose and the lobster gummies.
That was a good time.
We watched Jaws like every year.
It's Jaws time.
I haven't watched Jaws this year.
Me either.
Well, I did watch it.
Oh no, that was last year for my anniversary.
We want to see it in the theater.
I know that was so cool.
I didn't get to do it in the theater.
I still have not seen it in the theater.
Cause I know they won't do that.
They'll do like re-releases or like my hometown, they would do movies in the park on a big
inflatable screen and they did Jaws one time and I wasn't there for it.
So sad.
I would love to do it.
I've seen where they'll project it at a lake or something and people will be in the lake
on their inner tubes.
That would be the best.
It would be so fun.
And the water watching Jaws.
Yes.
Knowing me, I'd probably be like freezing the whole time.
Yeah.
Worth it.
Unless it's in the Caribbean.
Yeah.
Even better.
Right?
Yeah.
I recently watched the Fableman's which is supposed to be Steven Spielberg's autobiography
sort of.
And the whole time I was excited cause it was like this young man becoming interested in
making films and I'm like he's going to make Jaws, that guy right there.
He's going to make one of our favorite movies of all time.
We're like you and every time he would be discouraged I'm like no you have to keep going.
For everyone.
For childhood.
Because if it's not Jaws, it's Jurassic Park and Indiana Jones.
I was just going to say Indy.
So anyway that's a good movie too.
It is.
All of them.
Yeah.
Well did you have anything else you wanted to say?
I don't.
So I believe I go first this time.
Yes you are the first shark.
I'm the first attack.
If you were going to be any kind of shark though, what shark would you be?
So unoriginal but great white.
I know right?
They're just like wonderful big dummies.
That's how I feel I am.
And they just kind of like have the certain expression on their face.
They're always kind of look like.
Yeah they either look like that or they look kind of concerned.
Yeah.
Which is also how I look out in public where I'm like uh.
Yeah my mouth is just slightly open.
My teeth are like.
Yeah the shark face is not an aggressive face.
It's just like a uh face.
Yeah like if you didn't know anything about sharks and you just saw it you'd be like oh
that's so cute.
That's so cute.
Just don't look at his many rows of teeth but he uses them because he needs to because
he needs to eat.
Yeah.
Just like everyone.
He needs to survive.
Yeah.
Okay so my story that I'm doing is one of the events that inspired JAWS and that is the
1916 Jersey Beach Shark attacks.
I'm so excited.
I don't know anything about this.
Really?
I've read about shark attacks and this was referenced but I don't know the details.
Oh my gosh I'm so excited.
So my main sources were the podcast Inside JAWS which is just really interesting if you
like JAWS or film in general and so it goes into like some of the inspiration behind the
book and the movie and then the process of Steven Spielberg making the movie and then
Encyclopedia Britannica, the entry on the New Jersey shark attacks and then our good old
pal Wikipedia.
Yeah.
Okay so settle in, grab a drink or some shark gummies.
Grab your closest shark gummied drink.
And also maybe if like any sort of blood or gore grosses you out maybe just fast forward
you know.
Mm-hmm.
But we gotta tell it so here we go.
So in the summer of 1916 swimming in the ocean was still a pretty new pastime but this summer
had a heat wave unlike any other and the Jersey beaches were crowded with local people and
tourists and it was close.
I already have a question.
Yes.
Why is swimming in 1916 still a new pastime?
Did people not swim in the ocean for a long time?
I don't think so.
I mean I guess like if you didn't know that much about the ocean.
Oh and maybe people didn't know how to swim.
Yeah I feel like that was probably less common.
Ah okay.
Like being able to know how to swim.
Because that was not that long ago.
No it wasn't.
Wow.
Yeah.
We've taken oceans for granted.
We have in so many ways.
Oh man.
And it was close to Fourth of July weekend and the local hotels were busy and local fishermen
were complaining that fish were nowhere to be found and there was no catches.
And on this day 25 year old Charles Van Sant went for a swim.
He was a stockbroker from a prominent Philadelphia family and he was engaged to be married.
He was strong and handsome and he had a golden retriever named Jack that was there with him.
Oh Jack.
So Charles swam out far into the ocean showing off for his friends still on the shore.
You know he was young.
He was good looking.
He had like a bunch of his friends and some ladies with him so he wanted to show off for
them.
He was a little bit of a himbo.
He sounds like he was a little bit of a himbo.
Or maybe he was a finance bro because he was a stockbroker.
Oh he probably was.
So I think.
But he sounded like he was a nice guy.
Yeah.
He was still a good time.
He was still a yeah.
So him and his dog Jack swam out into the ocean but suddenly Jack started swimming back
to the shore and he tried to call out to Jack but Jack just kept swimming back towards the
shore and Charles was like okay whatever I'm just gonna I'm gonna stay out and I'm gonna
keep swimming and I'm gonna float out here.
So he could see people on the beach shouting and pointing at him and 30 yards out from
the beach he he started swimming back to shore and when he was 30 yards out a shark quickly
gained on him and attacked him.
The water started filling with blood and Charles fought as hard as he could with the sharp
teeth cutting into his body and he was able to make it to the sand and he reached out
for help.
The shark let go but then grabbed him again by the thigh.
No.
So the shark was like kind of toying with him.
And the shark was on the sand with him and holding on trying to swallow him whole.
Oh my gosh.
For some reason he let go and went back to the water.
People came and carried.
He was embarrassed.
Some people were watching.
He's like oh no sand I don't know what to do here.
I don't know what to do.
So people came and carried Charles away and laid him down on a towel.
He was barely alive and his left leg was almost off.
A hole was torn in his side where his thigh had been and he was bleeding and trembling.
Oh my gosh.
And unfortunately he did die due to his injuries.
Numerous experts said that it couldn't be a shark and they thought that it must be a
fish or a freak accident or maybe even a sea turtle because sea turtles were known to snap
at people or I guess attack them if they were threatened.
But if so many people saw that it was a shark on the beach why would people say it was a
turtle?
Because it was like so unheard of at this point.
Oh I see.
And they were like oh that's ridiculous that's not something that a shark would do.
They must be mistaken.
They're like my best friend is shark and he would never be that same.
So they insisted that sharks don't eat people and they said that the shore was perfectly
safe.
So then on July 3rd, 1916 Charles Bruder 28 was the bell captain at the Essex and Sussex
Hotel in New Jersey and he was an incredibly strong and fast swimmer.
He had read about the death of Charles Van Sant but he didn't believe that it was a shark
attack because he was an experienced swimmer and he had never come across anything like
that before.
He figured that Van Sant had just drowned and he thought well I'm such a strong swimmer
that that's not going to be a problem for me.
Famous last words.
Truly.
So he swam past the lifelines and the barriers and the ocean and he was just out there floating
in the ocean similar to Van Sant and then all of a sudden Bruder was lifted up and over
the water by a shark.
Onlookers saw a spray of crimson water burst into the sky and Bruder was dragged across
the water left and right being thrashed and pulled under and spit out over and over.
Lifeguards searched for him and saw his head bobbing in the water.
They lifted what was left of him onto the boat and he was alive but bleeding out and
he was such a horrific sight that the lifeguards started crying and some vomited over the side
of the boat at the site.
His feet and his legs were gone and there was a gaping wound in his side and intestines
were sliding onto the deck from the wound and Charles died very quickly.
I hope so.
You would hope.
At least I hope he was in shock and he couldn't tell what was happening.
It sounds like at least from the onlookers descriptions that he was in shock and he immediately
bled out but that is so horrifying and I can't imagine being one of those lifeguards and
it's just so horrific that you just burst out crying.
Oh yeah.
The years of trauma and nightmares they've had since and it made me think of that first
scene in Jaws, the girl swimming.
Yeah, when he's like thrashing her side to side.
Which that seems kind of like farfetched.
What do you really do with sharks?
Turns out they do.
They do.
I imagine it's a way of debilitating their prey before they...
Disorienting them so they don't fight back.
Exactly.
Which, yeah.
It worked.
Yeah.
So the response after the second attack was much more sensational and panic inducing.
There was a press conference on July 8th at the National History Museum with three experts,
Frederick Augustus Lucas, John Treadwell Nichols, and Robert Cushman Murphy.
They tried to away fears by saying a third attack was unlikely and the only ichthyologist,
Nichols, advised that swimmers should stay close to the areas by the shore that had been
installed after the first attack.
They had some like netted areas with some barriers.
Because they're like teeth can't go through net.
Yeah, or at least like, I don't know, it's somewhat of a deterrent.
True, yeah.
So people have debated what species of shark was responsible for the attacks.
They debate whether it was a bull shark or a great white shark.
The scientists thought that a rogue shark must be responsible for the attacks.
But he had just gone rogue from his little group of, are they solitary?
I think they're solitary.
I think they're solitary hunters, but I don't know what rogue means if it's just like he's
doing crazy things.
He had been writing manifestos and he's like, humans are the problem.
He's like, I have a vendetta against people now.
Maybe.
But several fishermen claim to have caught the Jersey Man-Eater, which is what they're
calling the shark.
That's actually a very scary name for some reason.
If you don't know that it's a shark, you're just like, what is that?
What is that?
Because, I mean, unfortunately, because we know very scary names for killers, it could
be literally anything.
It could.
But when you find out it's a shark, you're like, oh, phew, it's just a shark.
So several fishermen claim to have caught the shark.
But on July 14th, Michael Schleisser, who was a taxidermist and also a lion tamer for
Barnum and Bailey, caught a great white shark while fishing in Raritan Bay.
It almost sank his boat until he was able to kill it with a broken oar.
When he opened up the shark, he found suspicious contents that scientists were later able to
identify as human remains.
Schleisser stuffed and mounted the shark and put it on display in a Manhattan shop in Broadway.
And then after that, no other attacks were reported that summer on the Jersey Shore.
I want to know what happened to that stuffed shark.
Did he just give it to his children?
It eventually got lost, and there's actually only one picture.
I think it was in the New York Times of the stuffed shark.
I don't know how you lose a stuffed shark.
I'm like, maybe someone somewhere has it.
And they're just like, I'm not going to tell anyone.
They just see someone walking away, dragging a stuffed shark down the street, and they're
like, oh, this is mine.
This is actually my stuffed shark.
I know.
In a letter to the New York Times, people were blaming the shark infestation on the maneuvers
of German U-boats near America's east coast.
And the anonymous writer claimed these sharks may have devoured human bodies in the waters
of the German war zone and followed winers to this coast, or even followed the Deutschland
herself, expecting the usual toll of drowning men, women, and children.
The writer concluded this would account for their boldness and their craving for human
flesh.
That makes sense, because what we know about sharks now is that they have such an abundance
of food for, as far as seals or sea lions, that they don't go for humans unless they
have already been like, this is all I have.
Yeah.
And they're like, oh, you know what?
This tasted pretty good.
Let's go look for some more.
It's a little gamey, but once you get used to it.
Yeah.
Still to this day, people debate whether it was actually a shark that was responsible
for these attacks.
And if it was a shark, scientists think it was actually a bull shark, most likely.
And that the great, instead of the great white, because the bull shark can swim from the open
ocean to more freshwater areas like where the attacks happened.
And in 2011, there were more studies in the documentary, The Real Story, JAWS, that scientists
take a look into the lunar cycle during the attacks, the salinity of the water, and the
type of bite that the victims received, which I haven't watched that documentary, but it
sounds really interesting.
Yeah, it does.
And of course, when we talk about the shark attacks, we have to talk about the cultural
impact.
Oh, yeah.
So in 1974, author Peter Benchley published his novel JAWS, which of course was later
adapted in 1975 by Steven Spielberg.
And the movie makes several references to the 1916 attacks, the events taking place around
4th of July, and authorities urging the mayor to close down the beach.
And then Richard Dreyfus' character even mentions the 1916 shark attacks when he's talking about
the behavior of the shark.
And he references how in 1916, there was a shark that was just decimating the New Jersey
Beach.
And then, of course, several other things sounded familiar, like the fisherman that eventually
caught the shark.
It kind of sounds like the scene with Brody.
You know, after, I mean, spoiler alert, but also if you haven't seen JAWS, what are you
doing?
Yeah.
Like after Quint dies, it's just Brody alone on the boat, and he catches the shark.
I thought that too, when he's hitting it with an oar.
Uh-huh.
In real life, I'm like, that would be so scary.
I know.
And no oxygen tank or anything, just the oar took it out.
Yeah.
And then a lot of fishermen were claiming that they caught the shark.
Right.
And it really was something else.
Yeah.
And yeah, that is the 1916 New Jersey shark attacks and the effect that it had on JAWS.
Wow.
That's so interesting.
I definitely recommend listening to the Inside JAWS podcast, but like I said, if you are
like, don't like Gore or anything, I would say he goes into more detail than me.
And because it's a Wondery podcast, there's a lot of Foley work.
So there's like.
True.
Like someone screaming in the background during the story.
Yeah.
And it's not like the real scream, but.
But it's still terrifying.
Yeah.
But they do such a good job on that podcast because they also did like Inside Star Wars.
Yeah.
And I think Inside Psycho.
Yeah.
But yeah, JAWS is definitely my favorite one.
Yeah.
Definitely.
Same.
And we both really live Star Wars and Psycho.
Mm-hmm.
Except, I mean, we both love the original Psycho.
And somebody I know that also feels the same way about like Alfred Hitchcock and all that.
They listened to the Inside Psycho podcast and it said it that scared them so much they
couldn't listen past like one episode.
Yeah.
Was that me?
I'm like, that's also familiar.
I was like thinking like, wait a minute.
Yeah.
It's because I like I listened to a lot of true crime, but anything about it.
Yeah.
And I watched Andre Talk with Eddieores Johnson while he was doing his TV series on theuki
and especially I playuzz for the雪.
Yeah.
And there's a really good idea about it.
So I went out to the store for like Tom volts and I just believe that if I throw a
What's it like?
radar in my car, I would throw up some trash in the ad that a lot of people would lake
But like that is interesting.
Yeah.
Oh my gosh.
Gross.
Yeah.
Yeah, we're like sharks are cooler than them.
Yeah, sharks, they're just like doing their own thing.
Like they might occasionally get a human, but they're like, hey, I'm just trying to
get food, man.
That's how they eat.
I mean, they unfortunately, they are, they have so many teeth and they are not herbivores,
they're not omnivores.
They will eat anything thrashing around in the water.
Oh, also the part about the spray of crimson blood reminded me of the second death in Jaws.
Yes, I got that too.
And I want to watch Jaws now.
I know.
I'm definitely going to watch it later tonight.
Right?
I think I will too.
Okay, should we take, should I go right into mine or should we take a break?
Let's take a break.
Okay.
So, for my shark story, Olivia, I am going to tell you about the shark arm murders.
Okay.
My sources for this story are a mental floss article by Michelle Dubjak, a vice article
by Stephanie Hughes, a little write up on the Sydney Crime Museum.com website.
I don't know if I need to say website and.com in the same sentence, but that's fine.
And then a book called Shark Arm by Kevin Meager and Phillip Roup.
Yes.
It gets right to the point.
You're not wondering what it's about.
And so just kind of an aside or I guess trigger warning.
This of course has reference to murder, but there is also reference to attempted suicide.
So okay, heads up.
Okay.
So on November, what am I trying to say?
On April 25th, 1935, a 14 foot tiger shark at the Koogee Aquarium in Sydney, Australia,
was behaving strangely.
It had lost energy and the appetite that it showed when it was, I had first arrived to
the aquarium a week prior, was gone, which is kind of unheard of for a shark.
It was moving sluggishly around its pool, bumping into the walls and sinking to the
tank's floor.
It sort of swam like something was weighing it down.
Poor guy.
It had a tummy ache.
With a sudden burst of movement, the shark thrashed its body and coughed up the contents
of its stomach.
When the foam settled, the crowd at the aquarium saw a partially digested human arm floating
on the pool's surface.
That is kind of funny that he was just like, I have a tummy ache.
And it was like, ow, something is hurting my tummy.
He's like, I actually would hurt my tummy too.
So despite how shocking this is, Australians aren't too alarmed because that year in 1935
there had been a string of shark attacks, especially ones that had terrorized the southeast
coast where Sydney is.
And typically it was tiger sharks that were the man-eaters around Sydney.
I love that Australians are just like not fazed by anything.
They're like, oh, yeah, look, that makes sense.
Yeah.
Australians, unfortunately for them, they are the Florida of the world because I actually
saw this TikTok the other day where it showed, it was like a British golfer versus an Australian
golfer.
And there was an alligator on the course.
And the first golfer was like, oh my gosh.
And the second one, he had one hand in his pocket.
He's that cool.
Walked up to the alligator and flicked its tail and it ran away.
And people in the comments were like, actually that is Floridians on a daily basis.
Like, get out of my way.
That's so funny.
Yeah.
So between the two of them, they're not fazed by anything.
Oh, OK.
So in addition to these deadly shark encounters in the area, the whole Koogee Beach already
has a murky past.
It's a part of Sydney that has ties to a dark criminal underworld and can be known as being
very violent.
In 1935, in addition to this, the Great Depression is in full swing.
So a lot of people are out of money, are feeling down on their luck.
And just a year prior to this, there was a horrific pajama girl murder where a young
woman's body was found badly burned.
So speaking of all this, Sydney residents are feeling like they need a little levity
in their life.
And today of the throw up day of the shark, it's the 25th of April.
And this is called Anzac Day.
It's kind of similar to the Memorial Day for Americans.
And Australians and Kiwis, New Zealanders, observe it.
So everyone has the day off.
They're out to go have fun.
They're like, we've got to do something fun because everything's sad.
So they go to the aquarium to see the new star of the show.
And aquarium proprietor Bert Hobson and his son just caught the shark about a week prior.
And they were trying to turn around the down on its luck, Koogee Aquarium.
Originally they had reeled in a smaller shark, but then that smaller shark was immediately
eaten by a much larger tiger shark as they were reeling it in.
Which is kind of funny.
That tiger shark is like, ha, ha.
And then he's like, oh, no.
It reminds me of like Star Wars when the other fish comes and eats the fish that's eating
the plane and he's between the ship.
And he's like, there's always a bigger fish.
Yeah.
Liam Neeson just shows up behind them.
He's about 1935.
And he's like, there's always a bigger fish.
So this is very exciting for them because they have a tiger shark.
And these are sharks that are attacking people.
So now they can give the public a chance to see these man eaters up close.
And then it was funny to me, the Mental Floss article said the captive creature was a reminder
of mankind's dominion over the seas.
And I'm thinking, I don't think mankind has ever had a dominion over the sea.
No, that's really cute.
Because they think that.
But I mean, I mean, I guess like with catching fish to eat, but I'm like, the ocean will
mess you up.
The ocean's like, if you cross me, I will just swallow you right up.
I'll swallow you up.
OK.
However, this now captive tiger shark had just vomited up an appendage and a human arm,
no less.
And this human arm was curious looking because it had a boxer tattoo and rope tied around
the wrist.
And Narcisse Leo Young, who was a proof who, I guess at the time when they interviewed
him for the book, he was a proofreader for the Sydney Herald.
He was there that day as a boy.
Actually, I don't know if that's a boy or a girl's name.
I didn't ever look up what they looked like.
It could go either way, kind of like my name, where you're like, I don't know.
So they were there that day.
And they said, I was three or four meters from the shark and clearly saw, come out of
his mouth, a copious brown froth, which smelled really foul.
No, they could smell it.
Yeah.
So it all of it together.
And in addition to the to the arm, the shark expelled a bird, a rat and a load of muck.
That visual.
Oh, God.
Oh, I don't know why I'm laughing.
Do you like that it was like the arm?
They're like, oh, OK.
And then the smell, they're like, oh, my gosh.
So of course, there's now an arm in the pool.
So the police recalled and the police were at first convinced that the shark arm was
a prank either by the staff themselves or by local medical students who have access
to spare cadaver parts.
Just a severed arm prank.
Yeah.
And they were like, oh, I'm going to kill those crazy kids.
But no one was laughing as the arm with a tattoo and the suspicious rope was fished
from the water and brought to the coroner's office.
As the incident became more unsettling, because further details emerged as the coroner reported
that the arm was not bitten off by a shark, but cleanly cut off with a knife, which meant
the shark had vomited the remains of an innocent party and an apparent murder.
Yeah.
So Edwin Smith was reading about what had happened just a few days later in the paper
about the Koogee Aquarium shark arm.
And he came across a detail that made him pause, a description of the distinctive tattoo
branding the arm recovered from the pool.
On the victim's forearm, it depicted two boxers facing each other.
Smith immediately thought of his brother, Jim, who had the same image tattooed in the
same place and who had been missing for several weeks.
Oh, that's so sad.
Yeah.
So this tattooed arm shed light on the mystery of Jim Smith's disappearance.
Edwin called up to tip the police, as did Jim's wife, Gladys, connecting the tattoo
and the limb to his missing brother and Gladys' missing husband.
Law enforcement officers also had the victim's fingerprints because they were using a new
forensic technique.
1935, that's pretty cool.
They were able to match the hand to Smith as he had his fingerprints on file because
he was a known criminal and former police informant.
And now he was the victim of foul play.
So Jim Smith was a 45-year-old English-born Australia resident.
And before his criminal life, he wanted to be a boxer.
He was forced to leave his dream, and this is very relatable.
He was forced to leave his dream behind because it was clear he didn't have talent for the
sport.
Oh.
I've been there, Jim.
Not for boxing, but for many other things.
He's like, here's my life plan.
And they're like, no, it's not.
No, I'm sorry, Jim.
So he went from job to job where he landed work in a pub where he started developing
connections with the criminal underworld.
And one of these connections was to a wealthy boat-building businessman named Reginald Holmes.
And Reginald Holmes, he was a man of many titles, in addition to being a well-loved
family man and respected member of society who gave back to the community through church
donations, which it's like, oh, he's so amazing.
He's actually an active heroin smuggler.
Oh, OK.
Yeah.
Right?
He was a business fraud mastermind.
He employed Jim Smith to carry out different tasks like cheating construction workers
of building supplies and then over-ensuring properties before destroying it through arson.
Nice.
One of Reginald Holmes' most infamous cons involved the destruction of an over-insured
yacht called the Pathfinder.
So in addition to recruiting Smith, he also recruited an ex-convict named Patrick Brady,
who had a talent for forgery.
And it was said he had been picked up for forging signatures of generals in World War
I, which is like, wow.
Shoot for the moon, I guess.
Yeah.
So these two were tasked with sinking the Pathfinder.
And after it sank, Reginald Holmes went to file a claim for the damages.
But then he found out that Jim Smith had reported the incident to the police as suspicious.
So Holmes had to pay for everything out of pocket, which was hard during the Great Depression.
He also should not have been doing it in the first place, but whatever.
And this led to obviously a falling out between the two men.
And this was exacerbated when Jim started two black male Holmes.
So our little boxer tattoo boy was he was going for the big.
Yeah, because always black male, the heroine smuggler.
Yeah.
That's OK.
If you're going to do.
OK, first of all, don't do drugs.
Don't black male.
But if you're going to blackmail someone, don't blackmail someone who's been in crime much
longer than you.
Seriously.
That's just a rule of thumb.
So several weeks before this shark throws up this arm on April 7th, Smith told his wife
that he was going fishing.
A few restless rest, restless nights later, his wife became so worried and agitated that
she didn't know what to do.
One night she received a mysterious call from a man and he said, quote, don't worry,
Jimmy will be home in three days time.
And quote, Jimmy did not make it home.
No, no.
In fact, Jim was seen last drinking and playing cards with Patrick Brady, our forger at the
Cecil Hotel.
And Cranula, a suburb of Sydney.
That's so weird.
Yeah, I don't think Cecil Hotel has a good, like that's just a name that is bad no matter
where you are in the world.
What if it was like they had a chain and they were all terrible?
It's like like the holiday in, but it's the Cecil Hotel and it just inspires so much sadness.
OK.
So as the night progressed, Jim and Patrick, they're having fun drinking, playing cards.
They relocate to a cottage that Brady was renting on to Long Beach Street.
Several hours later, a disheveled looking Brady took a cab from his cottage to Reginald
Holmes house.
Smith was no longer with him.
They were going to be like, hey, we should go, you know, let's have a fun sleepover.
I don't know what men do.
They're like, let's go drink at my house.
Hey, bestie.
And then it was like, ooh, nope, that was not good.
So because police know about Jim Smith's ties to Reginald Holmes and Patrick Brady, they
had two obvious suspects already.
In addition to this, because Jim was a police informant, they knew of Smith black mailing
Holmes, which is terrible.
But the case was far from closed.
They did not have any hard evidence necessary to make arrests in connection to Smith's disappearance.
But as they began investigating, they decided to follow any moves Brady made up to the days
of the disappearance.
So they found taxi drivers who are willing to discuss trips he made, talking to those
who he rented the cottage from.
And one of the last trips he made blindsided investigators because they found that he went
to Reginald's home, which it's like, until now, they did not know that Holmes and Brady
knew each other.
They thought they were just, Jim was what they had in common, but it was like, oh, this
is a trifecta of not good.
So they moved to get Brady and they could only bring him in on forgery charges unrelated
to the crime.
It was said it took cops six hours of interrogation to get him to confess what they already suspected
that Reginald Holmes was the mastermind behind the entire plot.
Holmes, however, somehow heard the police were on to him because by the time the authorities
arrived at his house, he was on a speedboat in the middle of Sydney's harbor drinking
and driving.
Goodbye.
Yeah.
He's like, not only am I going to drive away, but he, it said he grabbed a bottle of liquor
and was drinking it while steering his boat.
Because, yeah, because he sounds like someone that makes good decisions.
He's like, if I'm going out, this is how I'm going.
Exactly.
And at one point he stopped the boat and rose before a group of spectators who were gathering
to watch the chase.
Reginald uttered a nonsensical warning, quote, Jimmy Smith is dead and there's only one
another left.
If you leave me until tonight, I will finish him.
Then he shot himself in the head and fell into the water.
What?
I don't think you're going to finish him, bud.
He's like, I was just joking.
It's for dramatic effect.
He was like, I'm very dramatic.
So it looked like the case had come to a dead end, but Holmes survived.
Yeah.
The bullet left him with a non-fatal wound to his forehead and he was able to haul himself
back into the boat.
So after this dramatic chase, the cops finally arrested him and dragged a confession out
of him that would prove, or tried to drag a confession out of him, but that was more
difficult than him trying to kill himself.
However, he did identify Brady as Smith's murderer and painted himself instead as the
victim of blackmail.
According to his story, Patrick Brady had acted alone while killing and dismembering Jim
Smith and his cottage onto Lumby Street.
He allegedly dumped most of the body parts in the sea, but held onto the arm as a threat
to Holmes.
In his version of events, Brady brought the limb to Holmes house and warned him that he
would be next if he didn't give him a generous amount of money.
Holmes held onto the arm and then claimed, which I'm like, why was he keeping it?
I don't know.
But he claimed he panicked and got rid of the arm by tossing it in the ocean where then
the shark swallowed it whole.
It sounds like a lot of like.
And then I did this, but then I didn't know what to do, so I did this.
Yeah.
The only thing that tracks is the throwing it in the ocean because obviously the shark
didn't swallow it.
Yeah.
He's like, actually the shark murdered him.
I don't know why the shark was so nice at first.
And the shark used a saw.
I guess.
He didn't bite.
Yeah.
Okay.
So regardless of how truthful this story was, investigators concluded that the arm
was likely consumed after being disposed of in the ocean.
Like you said, that's the most obvious point.
The timeline did make sense.
Tiger sharks have a slow digestive tract and the arm could have been sitting in the animal's
stomach for up to 18 days before it was thrown up.
So it's like whatever.
I mean, I'm guessing it's like a way for them to, if they don't have like access to a lot
of food, they can just keep it in their stomach.
But 18 days to digest something, that's a powerful digestive tract.
Like that really keeps things intact.
It's still had a tattoo after that long.
I know the fact that they could like make out the whole tattoo.
Yeah.
That's kind of impressive.
It's even possible that the arm was inside the first smaller shark that Bert Hobson caught
before the tiger shark ate the smaller shark, which this article, I think it was the vice
article said, creating a very unappetizing version of Turducken.
You're like, you put an arm inside a shark and then you put that shark inside of another
shark.
I just imagine like the tiger shark is like, man, what did this guy eat?
Yeah.
Like I don't feel good.
Like clearly he digested the first shark.
But what was inside that shark was like, gross.
Okay.
So the question of how the arm was separated from Smith's body in the first place was
what remained unanswered.
So obviously his arm was in a shark, but how did it actually get there?
And why?
Why did somebody cut his arm off and who did it?
Okay.
So while they're doing all this investigating on June 11th, 1935, Holmes withdrew $500 Australian
dollars.
It said pounds, but I think it was probably dollars from his account.
And late that evening left home.
He told his wife he had to meet someone.
He was also very cautious as he left his home, accompanying his wife to the door of
his sedan.
Probably the next morning, the day of the inquest he was meant to attend, he was found
dead in his car on Hickson Road where his home was.
He had been shot three times at close range.
The crime scene was made to appear that Holmes had committed suicide, but forensic police
had no doubt that he was murdered.
Yeah, he was shot three times.
It said the insurance policy would have been voided if he died by suicide.
So it's like he used this skill to make it look like, obviously, he didn't kill himself,
but he just was thinking about his family, you know, because he was such a nice guy.
Oh yeah.
Yeah.
And Holmes could not give any evidence of the inquest later that morning.
So clearly it was like he was guilty.
It was his last, his last hurrah.
Rick Brady survived to see his murder trial, but it wasn't an open and shut case because
they suffered without Holmes witness testimony and the physical evidence they had was less
incriminating than it seemed.
One arm wasn't proof of a murder, the defense argued, and it wasn't right to convict a man
of the crime when it was possible Smith had survived.
Brady was acquitted of the charges and maintained his innocence until his death at 76 years
old in 1965.
It said that Smith and Holmes weren't the only casualties of the shark arm case because
shortly after this is disgorging, that's a nice way of saying throwing up the arm, the
tiger shark from the Koogee Aquarium was killed and cut open.
The autopsy turned out to be a waste as it didn't have any additional body parts or answers.
So it was like he was killed.
Just wait for him to regurgitate all the stuff.
I know.
He was doing fine.
He just had a tummy ache.
Though much has been clarified since that day at the Koogee Aquarium in 1935, we will
likely never know the full story of what happened that night of Jim Smith's disappearance.
And if new evidence does emerge in the case, chances are slim as it will overshadow the
story's dramatic messy beginnings in the public consciousness.
And that is the story of the shark arm murders.
That was very interesting.
Right?
Yes.
I kind of remember some of the details about this case, but I forgot about a lot of it.
I definitely forgot about the shark and the aquarium.
Right.
Yeah, that shark poor thing.
Rest in peace little shark.
I know.
I'm like, don't blame the sharkies.
It's not their fault.
No.
They just have cold eyes like dolls eyes.
Like a doll's eyes.
I really held back with trying to do an Australian accent with that story.
Good job.
Yeah.
He's like, Jimmy Smith is dead.
And this tiger shark killed him.
I don't know.
Can you imagine if I tried to do a Jersey accent?
It would have been so bad.
Or good.
No, I've tried before.
It's so good.
That would be, I can imagine that Jersey could so easily become like Brooklyn, could so easily
suddenly be Boston.
They're very dissimilar, but also similar enough that I'm like, I can't always tell
the difference.
Yeah.
And that would just make people be like, are you kidding me?
That's a Boston accent or whatever.
And if we had any new Jersey listeners, I would offend them.
Yeah.
Which maybe we do.
I mean, maybe we do.
I hope someone, we have at least one Australian listener, my friend, Anjali.
Yeah.
I think I've seen our map that we actually have several.
Oh, very good.
Thank you, Australia.
Yes.
I hope you enjoyed the first fully Australian tale.
But yeah.
Yeah.
Also, we're still trying to figure out the best way to sign off this podcast.
That's a work in progress.
Yeah.
So if you have any suggestions, please feel free to give them to us, because every time
we kind of just start rambling at the end.
Which is kind of prudent who we are.
It is, yeah.
We're like, oh, I had another thought.
Oh, and here we go.
But do you have anything you'd like to add before next time?
Be careful in the ocean and don't swim out too far for many reasons.
And be nice to sharks and appreciate them for what they are.
Yeah.
They're not the enemy.
They just have a lot of teeth.
Yeah.
And maybe watch some Shark Week or some Jaws.
Yeah.
Also, maybe like, review and subscribe our podcast if you want.
Yeah.
And buy some more merch.
Yeah.
We have merch on Redbubble.
Oddly Curious Pod is the name of the store, I guess.
We have an Instagram and a TikTok now.
Oddly Curious Pod and Oddly Curious Pod.
And then we have Oddly CuriousPodcast at gmail.com if you would like to email us whatever you
want.
Maybe you can tell us that you like sharks.
Anything you want.
Tell us a shark fact.
Why not?
We love shark facts.
But yeah, on that note, be curious and be kind.
And we're going to need a bigger boat.
Yeah.
Okay.
Goodbye.
We love you.