Media

In a few short weeks, the media will again bring up Port Arthur as the anniversary of the massacre arrives. If you are a journalist, please read the facts below and compare them with what you are permitted to publish about Port Arthur.

The media will play on emotion, dance in the blood of the victims and re-traumatise the survivors as they praise John Howard and ignore the 5 mass shootings since 1996: Wedderburn, Lockart, Hectorville, Monash, Osmington. The past 22 years have seen the same number of mass shootings as the 22 years before Port Arthur. Then just this month, another mass shooting in Melbourne...

But Port Arthur is not about media hype. The essence of the Port Arthur case is evidence.

Specifically, the lack of it. Set aside your emotions and look at the impartial evidence before you.

Here are the facts that the media conveniently ignore; if you are a journalist, ask your editor or producer if you can do a story on them and let me know the response:

There was no examination of the evidence at Martin's "trial". After 5 months in solitary confinement, where he continued to plead not guilty, defence lawyer John Avery (since jailed for fraud and released) convinced his mother Carleen Bryant to tell Martin she wouldn't visit him, and he would rot alone in a concrete box unless he pled guilty. The "trial" was simply a summary of the prosecution case, followed by sentencing. Theatre. 

There is no DNA evidence that Martin Bryant was in the cafe. The utensils and Solo can the shooter used would have saliva and fingerprints on them, but has never been released. Likewise, the tape from the video camera left in the cafe has never seen daylight. Does it show a different story to the official narrative?

Solo can, utensils and video camera

There is no evidence that Bryant owned the FN FAL rifle serial number G3434 left broken at seascape. He denies ever seeing it or the scope before. A scoped FAL is very rare, since they are an infantry battle rifle, not a sniper rifle. Where did it come from?

FN FAL in .308 #G3434

The rifle on the roof leads me to another. Here are two photos from the book Shadow Warrior by David Everett. Everett was an Australian SASR soldier who went to help the Karen rebels fight the communist Burmese government. Using his contacts in the military, he was able to purchase weapons and supplies for his new friends. Dave was a short, skinny bloke, so old mate in the white T-shirt is taller, about the right height for the Port Arthur shooter. If he grew his hair out, or even put on a wig (several of the eyewitness accounts, like Jim Laycock, said the shooter's hair looked like a wig), he ticks a lot of boxes. Especially when you see him holding a rare FN FAL with a scope on it, just like the one left on the roof of Seascape.

The second photo is Dave himself, posing in Burma with a similar rifle, minus the scope. Dave was in prison at the time of the massacre, along with one of his accomplices James Reynolds. However, a third accomplice, called "Baz" in the book, was never officially arrested and remains at large. Is "Baz" this guy in the white t-shirt?

 

At the trial, prosecutor Damien Bugg said that Bryant shot David and Sally Martin at Seascape "between 11am and 12pm" but Simmons, waiting for a car at 10.45am, heard the shots "prior to 11am" as per his witness statement. Martin Bryant was, between 10.30 and 10.45am, witnessed putting $15 petrol in his Volvo at Taranna, 6km north (Chris Hammond witness statement), and then driving AWAY from Seascape, to surf at Roaring Beach. He was nowhere in the area between 11 and 12 that Sunday, look at the map:

10.45 at Taranna, Bryant then drove west to surf

A toasted sandwich and coffee at Nubeena, he passed PAHS between 12 and 12.30

Three shots were fired at 6.30pm inside PAHS while Bryant was under siege inside seascape. Who fired those shots? Lee Ann Godwin and John Featherstone both witnessed three shots from the verandah of Clougha, the visiting magistrates house.

The tape recording of Police officer McCarthy and "Jamie" contains clear gunshots in the background while Jamie was in the kitchen. Who fired those shots?

The recording also states that Jamie has another person inside the house called "Rick". Was it this Rick who was shooting from upstairs while Jamie was talking to McCarthy? Who is he and how did he escape the police cordon?

At the toll booth, Nicholas Cheok saw Robert and Helene Salzmann sit in the yellow Volvo with the gunman and his hot rifle instead of running away like everyone else. They were talking, then arguing, then Robert stood in the middle of the road while the blonde gunman retrieved his rifle from the opposite side of the Volvo and shot him, Helene, Jim Pollard and Rose Nixon (whose husband owned the BMW the gunman was about to steal). Why would these 4 people meet the gunman, speak to him, then wait around to be shot while everyone else was running away? How are they connected to each other and what relationship did they have with Martin Bryant?

Helen and Robert Salzmann, sat in the yellow Volvo.

Jim Pollard was driving the BMW that blocked entry traffic at the toll booth

Jim Laycock witnessed the toll booth shootings and the kidnapping of Glen Pears. He had known Martin for years, and said the shooter was not him. His witness statement is available on the menu of this blog.

Graham Collyer was shot in the neck inside the cafe. He describes the shooter as having "a lot of acne, a pitted face." In contrast, Martin has a smooth, creamy complexion. Graham's witness statement is also linked on the menu.

Brigid Cook survived being shot, and said in her witness statement that her memory had been influenced by the photos in the media. How many other witnesses had their memory affected by this phenomenon, ongoing research into crime and memory suggests a lot:

https://www.wired.co.uk/article/false-memory-syndrome-false-confessions-memories

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_memory

The newspaper photo in this post was stolen from Martin's house and illegally published before he was even charged with a crime. It tainted the memories of the witnesses and the public alike, yet the newspapers were never charged with anything from theft to attempting to influence a jury.

The emergency exit door to the cafe was locked, trapping people inside who were shot by the gunman. The same thing happened at the Al Noor mosque in Christchurch in 2019. Neither shooter had opportunity to lock the doors before they opened fire, so who locked those doors and turned the rooms into a slaughterhouse?

At the time of the cafe shooting, the only two police in the area were 30 minutes away at remote Saltwater River, where a soap powder stash had been phoned in as a hoax. Who placed the soap powder there? Not Martin - his girlfriend Petra Wilmot had been with him all week. And Nubeena police station had a new phone number that had not yet been published in white and yellow pages. How did the gunman obtain the new phone number?

What happened to Helen Harvey's Tatts shares? Martin's friend left him all her estate, but since both were managed by the Public Trustee, it is unlikely the two accounts were combined. So when Martin's estate was seized by the Government (denying him the means to afford a lawyer), Helen's lottery shares and the lucrative income they provide disappeared. These shares became much more valuable when Tatts floated in 2005. My application to the State Archives for details of the compensation payments have been refused, citing a 25-year moratorium.

Was the massacre a cover up for the largest theft in Australian history since the Murwillumbah bank heist in 1978? The largest ever? With a float price of $2.90, out of 593 shareholders, the Tasmania Public Trustee held exactly two parcels of Tatts shares worth $39 million and $1.5 million respectively. In the chaos following the shooting, did someone get away with $39 million by pretending to distribute it to the victims? Prove me wrong by releasing the sealed records and having them audited.


The information about Tatts shares has been archived off the live internet. You have to use the Wayback Machine to access it: https://web.archive.org/web/20060513172101/https://www.theage.com.au/ed_docs/tattersals.pdf
And before you dismiss this idea as fantasy, I'm not the only one thinking it. The Lee Child novel One Shot, made into a film called Jack Reacher starring Tom Cruise, is about a man framed for a mass shooting that conceals an ulterior motive. As a trained statistician, I consider this explanation to be plausible and possible.

There are more strange details about Port Arthur: The perfect morgue truck that was scrapped after the massacre was over; the media and surgery conferences that ensured medical care and hysterical media coverage at the right time; the unusual Sunday seminar for the top managers of the Historic Site, ensured they were not on the premises when the shooting started.

 

 

Then there's Martin's own alibi, that he couldn't afford the entry fee, even if he had desired to go into Port Arthur that day - he was down to the coins in his glove box, planning to get more money from the Public Trustee on 1 May. How ironic that he would never see any of that money again.

Then there's the black van that appeared outside the Broad Arrow Café at 3.10pm (just 40 minutes after the shooting began and as the second Squirrel helicopter arrived to evacuate  wounded. Carol Laughton was evacuated on the first Squirrel so she did not see it arrive) and stayed there until 4.30pm. Three photos below show the van:

There are no theories here, conspiracy or otherwise. These are facts, taken from the witness statements and court documents. Any trained journalist will seek answers to these questions.

The best way to blow conspiracy theory out of the water is to produce evidence and have it examined by independent experts. We are consistently calling for such an inquiry, yet instead of complying, the Tasmanian government recently digitised all the evidence, locking it away under the highest level of security, only visible to the police minister, for yet another 75 years. Given the conflicting eyewitness accounts and the questions listed above, we encourage you to ask, "what are they hiding?"

Port Arthur was a horrible crime against humanity. The victims deserve to have the guilty punished. But there is reasonable doubt that Martin Bryant was the killer, so a retrial is needed. All decent human beings will want the truth and justice to prevail, and the first step is to recognise the holes in the official story and re-open the inquest that Ian Matterson started.

All we want is the truth.

The victims deserve the truth.

Are you a journalist?
There's probably a Pulitzer in it for the one who breaks this story open.
Get on it.

***

 

 

 

 

 

The 2nd Empty Chair is a fiction novel, based on the witness statements and court documents. Using poetic licence, it links the facts that we know into a plausible, possible narrative that 'pokes more holes in the official story than a Pastafarian's colander.'

 

Read the witness statements, this book and compare what you learn to the official story.
 

 

Lulu - Paperback delivery to Australia

 

Amazon - Kindle or Paperback

 

 

 

 

 

 

Truck

Among all the strange coincidences of the Port Arthur Massacre, none are as vivid as the refrigerated morgue truck. There's no question it was perfect for the job - 22 refrigerated berths kept the dead bodies cool while they were autopsied. The questions arise when you start thinking about why it existed in the first place, and what happened to it after the massacre.

Let's look at a few of the issues and facts in order: First, let's see what Carl Wernerhoff has to say (quoted from Mass Murder by Keith Noble:

“The fact that a morgue truck with over 20 bays was built before the massacre....17 Two specially designed embalming machines were sent to Hobart: ‘One firm in particular, Nelson Brothers [ 7 Droop Street, Footscray, VIC 3011], had organised for an embalming machine box and a special large equipment case to be manufactured ready for the incident. These two containers were the envy of all embalmers and worked extremely well,’ was recorded....”18 All these facts were never reported, in fact they were suppressed and dug up by investigators afterwards because had we known about these preparations I think we might have become even more suspicious of just how ready the city of Hobart was for a traumatic incident of major proportions.... [T]here are people who planned a massacre and blamed an unfortunate intellectually handicapped man for the terrible crimes that took place in one of the most beautiful and peaceful places on earth.

 

I have gathered innumerable pieces of information and facts which substantiate a cover-up of immense proportions over the past ten years. And even now, I am still uncovering more and more information. There is so much of it that it never ends. For instance, we know that a Mortuary truck with 22 body racks in a refrigerated unit was built before the massacre.... Why would Tasmania need a Mortuary Unit designed for a disaster of at least 22 bodies?

Thirty-five people were killed at one of the most beautiful historic sites in our country and only a few weeks later the Howard government [Liberal by name, but conservative by ideology] pushed through Draconian gun laws that had no hope in hell of getting passed without the emotional turmoil that followed the Port Arthur massacre.

(amended; added emphasis; added italics)  

Carl Wernerhoff

The Port Arthur massacre 10 years on the secrecy continues

members.iinet.net.au/~nedwood/Pam06.html

Footnotes:

17 The Australian (29 April 1996) states that the refrigerated mortuary truck was driven to Port Arthur late Sunday (28th). And on p. 106 of the Port Arthur Seminar Papers it reads:

“Day Four Wednesday 1 May 1996 ...First of the deceased persons leave the scene at Port Arthur and are removed to the Royal Hobart Hospital mortuary.” Euphemistic words of the Australian Funeral Directors Association tell us the first load of bodies was trucked from Port Arthur to the Hobart morgue on Wednesday, three days after the incident. Charleton’s purpose-built refrigerated truck had two functions related to the bodies of the 35 people officially killed: i. Storage; and, ii. Transportation.

18 Stephen Parry. Port Arthur massacre 1996 – AFDA national embalming team – detailed report; Port Arthur Seminar Papers; 1997: p. 112.

It cannot get any more diabolical and shocking. Nelson Brothers had special big-job embalming equipment “manufactured ready for the incident.”

Officials want you to believe they had no fore-knowledge about the incident at Port Arthur. But true facts tell the world another story – 35 people were killed with official approval and funeral directors in Victoria had the special embalming equipment that they would need in Tasmania manufactured ready for use after the killing was done.

End quote.

 

Next, let's look at what happened after the truck was proven useful. Was it retained by the Tasmanian government, in case a tragedy happened again? Was it purchased by Victoria or New South Wales - both of whom had gun massacres prior to Port Arthur, and with higher populations were statistically more likely to have a mass casualty event like a plane or boat disaster?

 No, it was offered for sale with an enigmatic note: Again, Mass Murder has a copy of the advertisement:

 

“Yellow Chevrolet 350 V8 truck with refrigerated body, holds 22. This vehicle was primarily used as the disaster vehicle in the Port Arthur Massacre. This vehicle is currently for sale and all reasonable offers will be considered. The vehicle has value as not only a refrigerated unit for body removal, it is the only one of its kind in the entire country. The memorabilia value of it for anyone making a movie/series or writing a book on Port Arthur is limitless. Not only would the purchaser be getting the disaster vehicle, but the whole Port Arthur Story would be given as well. This vehicle is currently for sale and all REASONABLE OFFERS will be considered.” Email cwright@trump.net.au

It seems that Chris Wright was then a copper with Tasmania Police. Now how did he get to own, or have responsibility for selling, this 22-body refrigerated morgue vehicle? If you know how, please email your info to:

MARTINBRYANTISINNOCENT@gmail.com 

 

End quote.

 

You can also contact me via o_zim@protonmail.com

 

Sadly, emails to that address simply bounce back. Now let’s turn to Andrew MacGregor’s book Deceit and Terrorism. He starts with the media circus:

If the Port Arthur massacre was one thing, it was a media show, and a very successful one at that. The media were given top priority, and followed the government leads in their entirety. A typical example of the death of investigative journalism by the television media is that with Andrew Fisher at the Police forward Command Post at Taranna.

Andrew Fisher at the PFCP at Taranna on the evening of the massacre, “Well, a State Crisis Centre is being set up at Police headquarters, and the deputy State Coroner Mr Matterson has turned up as has a Mortuary truck to pick up the dead at the present time. Police are also saying that there will be trauma counselling both on the peninsula and a major centre is being set up at the Rokeby Police Academy just outside Hobart.” “Thank you Andrew, we’ll leave it there; Andrew Fisher.”

None of the audience listening to that little description would pick up anything unusual, but if Andrew Fisher actually saw the Southern Tasmanian Mortuary truck, he should have asked some very pertinent questions. For a full description of this vehicle consider this advertisement placed on the Internet in September 1999:

Vehicle for Sale – the same ad as above.

 A hearse built to carry 22 bodies! It is the only one of its kind in Australia. Why would a State like Tasmania need such a vehicle? Why would a State government decide to purchase such a vehicle? What precedent would it be relying on to consider the application of such a vehicle? There had never been any requirement for such a vehicle in Tasmania’s history prior to the Port Arthur Massacre, and there has never been any further requirement for this vehicle. Andrew Fisher never had any curiosity about such an oddity appearing within hours of the Port Arthur Massacre. This vehicle is described slightly differently though in the EMA Port Arthur Seminar Papers on pages 90 & 97.

 

On page 90 in the report tabled by Mr Ian Matterson it states, “Also present was a Chevrolet truck to the chassis of which Mr Charlton had attached a refrigerated covered compartment capable of storing sixteen (16) bodies. This vehicle had, in the past, been regarded by many as an expensive aberration that would never have a use. At Port Arthur it was a highly prized possession.”

On page 97 in the report by Mr T. J. Lyons, State Forensic Pathologist, it states, “Removal of the bodies was greatly assisted because the Southern Region Mortuary Ambulance Service provided a large vehicle capable of handling multiple bodies – the only such vehicle currently available in Australia.”

Andrew Fisher is the first reporter to tell us that things are not quite as they seem. There were many more instances where the media reported items that should have aroused suspicion, but did not.” 

 

End quote 

So, the truck remains an enigma. Here are some questions for an inquiry to ask:

Who authorised the truck to be built?

What reasons did they have?

Who authorised its disposal?

How did Chris Wright obtain the truck after the massacre?

Did he pay a commercial price or value for it?

 

Anyone with information or eyewitness testimony is encouraged to contact me in absolute confidentiality.

 

Anyone who wants to read a plausible alternative that matches the facts more closely than the official story, get a copy of The 2^nd Empty Chair: The Port Arthur Paradox.

 

Some more photos of this strange artefact: