Posted in Boggo Road Tales

Want to have a chat or your book signed this weekend? Then come on down to Angus and Robertson Ipswich this Saturday 25th October! I will be there greeting fans and signing books at Angus and Robertson Ipswich.

Come and have a chat and I will personally autograph any of your copies from the Murder Trails Series, Ghost Trails Series, Classic Crime or Boggo Road Gaol series from 10:30am.

I'll also answer your questions about any of the notorious cases from featured in my books, as well as other famous Brisbane Crime Mysteries! Looking forward to seeing you all there this weekend.

This year marks 75 years since Derwent Evans Arkinstall murdered taxi driver Howard Thomas Chambers at Holland Park on Brisbane’s Southside. In June 1939, Brisbane was shocked when it was learnt that the killer was only 18 years of age. An electrician’s apprentice Arkinstall seemed a most unlikely killer. Indeed when interviewed by police soon after his arrest in Bangalow New South Wales where he had fled after committing the crime, he seemingly did not realise the gravity of what he had done: “It was not an accident, and I did not do it deliberately, yet I do not know how I did it. I just took the revolver out of my pocket and fired it.”

 

It was truly a terrible crime. Tom Chambers was a veteran cabbie, 74 years of age. His body was found at Slack’s Creek. He had been shot twice in the back of the head and once in the forehead – to make sure he was dead.

When he appeared in Brisbane Police Court Arkinstall was asked whether he admitted he had fired the shots that had killed Chambers. Cold-bloodedly the youth responded “They say there were only two shots, but I am sure I fired three”.  Arkinstall was found guilty of murder in the Supreme Court soon after.

He would spend 43 years living behind the walls of Boggo Road Gaol becoming Australia’s longest serving prisoner at that time. In “Boggo” he was regarded as a dangerous trouble maker. In 1946 notorious escapologist Arthur Halliday, Arkinstall and Victor Travis staged one of the most daring prison breaks in Australian history. For this he was never trusted again.

His release 31 years ago was controversial. He had only one word for reporters at the time when asked what it was like to be leaving prison – “wonderful”.

The 62 years old had been released to die as a free man.  In this case justice could truly have been said to have been served – prison had claimed the best part of Arkinstall’s life.

Listen to True Crime – every Thursday at 9.30pm on Radio 4BC for this and more crime stories.

In 1983, Brisbane residents were shocked to read of a campaign to release a forgotten murderer from behind the bars of Boggo Road Jail. Wife killer, Jack Foy 66, was at the time Queensland’s longest serving prisoner. His savage crime, his first and only offense shocked the people of Chermside 24 years earlier.

Out on the “back track” of Number 2 Division at Boggo Road Gaol, a lonely lifer weeded and swept. This elderly figure caused no trouble and longed to hear the sound of birds once again. When asked by a new prison officer what he was in for,  Jack Foy would reply ‘I got life because his wife nagged me’.

Though now a frail crippled old man, on the 18th of June 1959 Jack Foy was a fit, hardworking labourer, well-liked by his neighbours and friends, but also an alcoholic.

The 42 year-old council worker and local handy-man was addicted to drink. He and his wife Lola 41, lived in Kingsmill Street Chermside. Jack was an epileptic and should not have been drinking; a fact Lola reminded him of daily. It seems that her nagging resulted in Jack picking up a tomahawk and striking her in the head. The Foy’s neighbour Mrs Jarvis was horrified when Jack walked over to the fence and handed over his little daughter saying ‘I’ve killed Lola, could you look after the kids and call the Police?’

Foy seemed like an unlikely killer in late 1983 after 25 years in Prison, Jack Foy was released to die as a free man.

When does “life” imprisonment mean for life?

Listen to True Crime – every Thursday at 9.30pm on Radio 4BC for this and more crime stories.