Honourable Mentions

A Succulent Chinese Meal: The True Crime Life of Jack Karlson

• Steve and Neil Webb • Season 1 • Episode 5

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Today, we are in Australia, for the true crime tale of a small time criminal but notorious jail breaker. Join us as we leap from trains, wriggle through hospital windows, break free of inescapable prisons, and even stroll right out the front door, 

The Honourable Mentions Podcast presents the remarkable real-life story of a legendary Australian Larrikin, that culminates with a 1991 arrest that shook the world.

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SPEAKER_01:

Honourable Mentions. Hello, listener, and welcome back to another episode of Honourable Mentions.

SPEAKER_04:

Hello, Neil. Oh, that's Dave. What's up, bood?

SPEAKER_01:

Can you do honourable mentions in an Australian accent, please? Go.

SPEAKER_04:

Honourable mentions? Because they go upwards when they finish a sentence.

SPEAKER_01:

Of course. I've been to Australia.

SPEAKER_04:

Have you ever been to Australia? Clang! Sorry, there's a name drop there. I'll better pick that one up.

SPEAKER_01:

So I'll tell you an amusing story. When you go to Australia, you go to Sydney, you go to Sydney, and in the middle of Sydney, they've got a harbour, which is called Sydney Harbour. And then over that harbour, linking the two sides together, they have a bridge. And it's called Sydney Harbour Bridge.

SPEAKER_04:

I'm sorry, I I I just completely drifted off. Anecdote for you there.

SPEAKER_01:

Was it an anecdote? My worthy travels. But the reason I asked you to do Honorable in an Australian accent. Honorable mentions, mate. Today, mate. Are you doing any of those honourable mentions today, mate? That sort of stuff. It's because we're heading to Australia for today's episode.

SPEAKER_04:

Okay.

SPEAKER_01:

So you're ready and strapped in?

SPEAKER_04:

I'm strapped on, yep.

SPEAKER_01:

No, not if you've got your strap-ons. Are you strapped in?

SPEAKER_04:

Oh, strapped in as well, yes.

SPEAKER_01:

Because we're going jetting off to the other side of the world to Australia.

SPEAKER_04:

Nice.

SPEAKER_01:

Where we're going to meet Cecil George Edwards.

SPEAKER_04:

Cecil.

SPEAKER_01:

Who was born in Brisbane, Australia, on the 6th of August 1942.

SPEAKER_04:

1942.

SPEAKER_01:

1942, Gobba. Now, young Cecil, he grew up poor.

SPEAKER_04:

Ah, bless him.

SPEAKER_01:

With a single mother who couldn't afford to keep Cecil and his brother Alan.

SPEAKER_04:

He only had the one mother then.

SPEAKER_01:

He only had the one mother, but she had two sons, Cecil and Alan.

SPEAKER_04:

Alan, another Alan.

SPEAKER_01:

Another Alan?

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah, we had Al Alan Capone, haven't we? We we talked about Alan Capone before, haven't we? Yes, yeah, we've got a memory of an elephant. I went to the zoo once and saw an elephant.

SPEAKER_01:

So from the age of seven, Cecil was sent to a series of orphanages and boys' homes where he was physically and sexually abused.

SPEAKER_04:

That's fills.

SPEAKER_01:

That's pretty horrendous.

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

Particularly as a fourteen-year-old ward of Blackheath Presbyterian Boys' Home in the Brisbane suburb of Oxley. That's where he got treated particularly badly when he was fourteen. By his mid-teens, Cecil had received the one true education of his formative years and was a practiced petty criminal. But then he's Australia, isn't he?

SPEAKER_04:

I mean Well they're all criminals.

SPEAKER_01:

I was gonna say. With arrests for stealing cars and robbing liquor stores, or as they're known in Australia, mate. They're called bottle shops.

SPEAKER_04:

Bottle or bottle.

SPEAKER_01:

Bottle shops.

SPEAKER_04:

Why didn't you say bottle in?

SPEAKER_01:

Or botlows. That's what they call this. Because everything's a webo or a botlow or a Steve O, so they call them botlows. One such botlow robby robbery. Botlow Robbie, that sounds like a mate of his. One such botlow robbery led to his capture and a short prison sentence after which Cecil Edwards started going by an alias.

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

Can you get can you guess what that alias was?

SPEAKER_04:

Australian criminals. Mel Gibson.

SPEAKER_01:

For the benefit of the tape, if well Gibson's lawyers are listening in. We're not alleging anything.

SPEAKER_04:

Two Jackmans, first Australians I can think of.

SPEAKER_01:

Any Australian. What about Carly Minogue or Skippy the Bush Kangaroo or that bloke who used to go around punching crocodiles in the nuts for a living? Could be any of them, couldn't it? Now we're talking about Cecil Edwards started going by the alias of Jack Carlson.

SPEAKER_04:

Oh, I haven't heard of him.

SPEAKER_01:

No, I you will do. While being held on the drunk and disorderly, Jack's fingerprints were matched to a series of crimes right across Australia.

SPEAKER_04:

Wasn't he?

SPEAKER_01:

In 1966, he was twenty-four years old and jailed in Bogo Road. Told you everything to know.

SPEAKER_05:

Yeah. Which served Rodo.

SPEAKER_01:

Bogo Rodo. Bogo Bogo Rodo. Which served as Brisbane's main prison from 1883 to the 1980s. Nowadays, of course, it's a cultural heritage site, tourist attraction and event venue nowadays, offering historical tours. He was in prison. He was in prison in Bogot in Australia.

SPEAKER_04:

They didn't do historical tours because people were in prison.

SPEAKER_01:

It was notorious for its horrific conditions and in inhumane practices. Can you enlighten on that a little bit? So not only was he in prison, but he was in possibly the worst prison in Australia, which is itself a large open air prison. As we know.

SPEAKER_04:

What is um inhumane things? Is it make him like two in a bucket and things like that? I think worse than that. Perhaps made him read um tour guides of Northampton.

SPEAKER_01:

Perhaps made them videos on Northampton whilst listening to piped in Coldplay music. Imagine that. Perhaps they perhaps the worst offenders were he deported back to England and Northampton.

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

Imagine that because Australia I've been to Australia, didn't I mention that?

SPEAKER_04:

No, you've not mentioned that, no.

SPEAKER_01:

I'm not making it. Well, Australia is actually a really, really nice place. Fantastic country full of really nice people. In fact, lovely weather. Um but yeah, imagine being sent from there and say, right, mate, you can't have this anymore. You're off to Northampton. Oh dear. That's inhumane, isn't it? That's a good good suggestion, Neil.

SPEAKER_04:

Thank you. Thank you, Stephen.

SPEAKER_01:

So, old Jack, we're calling him Jack now, because that's the name he was going by.

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

So if you're paying attention, this was Cecil, it's now Jack, same person.

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah, I'll think I'll change my name to Jack if I was called Cecil.

SPEAKER_01:

Jack Carlson was on a train going from Bogo Road Jail to face one of his charges, a breaking, entering, and stealing charge at Maryborough Magistrates Court.

SPEAKER_04:

Maryborough, oh yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

Maryborough Magistrates Court over at Brisbane way there.

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Know that.

SPEAKER_01:

He was handcuffed to a police officer for the journey, but when the officer fell asleep, Jack picked the lock on the handcuffs with his belt buckle, moved along the carriages, and simply jumped off and the train slowed down to let another pass. He's on his toes.

SPEAKER_04:

He was, wasn't he?

SPEAKER_01:

He's on his toes. He then avoided some.

SPEAKER_04:

Did he did he roll a few times and get up and go Jazzans?

SPEAKER_01:

But he then avoided all police roadblocks set up to recapture him by giving his name. He gave his name and address as Jack Carlson, which all checked out, especially and get this. Especially as he'd been arrested and processed under another alias, the Helmet Markson.

SPEAKER_04:

What? Helmet Marksman? Helmet Markson. Oh, they said the helmet marksman. As in Jimmy. As in Helmet Marksman. Don't go for the Fez, go for the helmet.

SPEAKER_01:

So he's he's using all these aliases, so they've they're looking at there saying, right, we're looking for this Helmet Markson.

SPEAKER_05:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

Upmarch is Jack Carlson. Are you Helmet Markson? No. You look a bit like him. Well look at my paperwork.

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah. I'm that would that would fool anybody, wouldn't it?

SPEAKER_01:

This is my address. I don't know how he had paperwork when he just came out of prison.

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah, well I get that see when I walk in a shop and people say, Are you Brad Pitt? No, I'm not. I don't look like him, I know, but yeah. Do they? Yeah, they often.

SPEAKER_01:

Are they saying that because they think you look like Brad Pitt or are they using the cockney rhyming slang?

SPEAKER_04:

That's earth a kit.

unknown:

As a swear.

SPEAKER_01:

Which we won't go into because we don't do that on this. We're responsible broadcasters.

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah, we don't say shit. Oops.

SPEAKER_01:

Two years later, Jack was locked up in MacLeod prison on Victoria's French Island for another theft. Surrounded by marshland, no one had ever I stress that word. Ever made a success. It was nicely stressed. I could have stressed the word had.

SPEAKER_04:

You could have put dramatic bit a bit more dra drama into it.

SPEAKER_01:

So okay. Two years later, Jack was locked up in MacLeod prison farm on Victorious French Island for another theft. Surrounded by marshland, no one had ever made a successful escape from French Island until Jack Carlson came along.

SPEAKER_04:

Wow.

SPEAKER_01:

Flipping away from a work detail, he and another convict hid out in a brush and shrub island for days, avoiding air and land searches. Eventually, so Jack's story goes, they flagged down a fisherman who just so happened to be unfamiliar with the area and unaware that there was a prison on the island. And Jack convinced him to give them a lift to the mainland. Well. I don't know how you could be unaware there's a prison on an island. You probably see it.

SPEAKER_04:

Exactly, yeah. That was in Australia, I'm sure it'd be big old a big old priso.

SPEAKER_01:

How long was Jack Carlson free as the morning breeze?

SPEAKER_04:

For the rest of his natural life.

SPEAKER_01:

To give you a clue, it's between one and four months and comes after two months.

SPEAKER_04:

That's a good clue, Steve. One after four after comes after two. It's gotta be three.

SPEAKER_01:

Well, well done. It was three months. Did you use a calculator there? Or was that all done?

SPEAKER_04:

No, I used my fingers, thank you. Well done.

SPEAKER_01:

It was three months until he was back inside again, picked up with a friend called Peter Maund.

SPEAKER_04:

Peter what's he maunted? Is he upset?

SPEAKER_01:

Peter Maund, M A U N D. Both of them in a stolen car and carrying safe breaking tools they were when they were stopped.

SPEAKER_05:

Wow.

SPEAKER_01:

At their court date to face their charges, Maund arrived wearing scruffy clothes and looking like he hadn't seen the inside of a bathroom in months.

SPEAKER_04:

No respect for himself, has he?

SPEAKER_01:

No respect for himself. Whereas Jack was neat and tidy in a sharp suit and tie. Nice.

SPEAKER_04:

Well done, Jack.

SPEAKER_01:

In the courthouse holding cells, Jack persuaded the other prisoners to heck and spit on him and call him a dirty cop when he and Maund were called.

SPEAKER_04:

Say again? When he was in when he was down in the in the holding cells, he he convinced all the other people in the cells to spit on him.

SPEAKER_01:

And call him a dirty cop when he and Maund were called to court. So here we go. Here here lies within um some some uh a sense of deliberate practice in what otherwise would be seen as as perhaps a little bit of madness. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04:

Can you spit on me?

SPEAKER_01:

Entering the courtroom and acting all confused, Jack introduced himself to the supervising officer and asked where Carlson and Maunde could be found. The officer said they were in the holding cells. Jack said they weren't, because he's just come from there with another prisoner who he had with him, who was of course Maurne.

SPEAKER_04:

Mourned.

SPEAKER_01:

And they were heading for another courtroom. Amid the panic of a potential serial escapee not being where he should be, Jack escorted Mourne right out the front door into freedom. And that is a true story. So when you say he was what's he doing? Put no effort in at all, turn up looking all scruffy like that. It was deliberate. That was their plan all along.

SPEAKER_04:

Oh. So they're very clever, very wise, and but then again the people in the courtroom were a bit thick.

SPEAKER_01:

It was only a few days before they were recaptured as they hold out in an apartment on Sydney's north shore. I've been to Sydney. Have you? Yeah. I spent a lot of time in Sydney.

SPEAKER_04:

I bet you're having dirty pig.

SPEAKER_01:

I've also been to Australia. Yeah. Good bloke. Um this time police blocked every court building, entrance and exit, and Jack was handed down an eight-year sentence. So this time I thought, well, you ain't gonna do that again.

SPEAKER_04:

You ain't gonna come and he's gonna stay in Northampton.

SPEAKER_01:

He's gonna stay in court in in jail. They probably said to note, if you don't stop being naughty, you're off, mate.

SPEAKER_05:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

You're off to n to Northampton.

SPEAKER_05:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

So that would strike me up, wouldn't it? The year was 1968 and Jack's life was about to take a dramatic turn.

unknown:

Ooh.

SPEAKER_04:

Did he say Jesus?

SPEAKER_01:

No, the word dramatic is used there in lots of senses, and if you bear with me, we will find out. He wound up in Parramatta, a prison in Sydney area, where he was put in an unusually large cell with an inmate named Jim McNeil. Jim McNeil? Hello Neil. He must have said Hello McNeil. McNeil was very intelligent, a lover of poetry, and a student of politics and philosophy, but serving time for a string of violent armed robberies.

SPEAKER_04:

Well, he obviously didn't um use his talents to get himself into a political background or anything, did he? He just thought, nah, sod it, I'm gonna just gonna beat people up and rob 'em. Don't like him.

SPEAKER_01:

Violent armed robberies. He heard about Jack's detective escape and thought it was hilarious. Yeah, I bet he did. And so the pair bonded immediately. They began a debating society that invited local college students to discuss topics of the day. They brewed something called pruner. Yeah?

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah, I was talked out of it.

SPEAKER_01:

That's the one. But they brewed something called pruner. So that'd be prunes. Out of yeast and raisins stolen from the prison kitchens.

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah, so it'd be prunes, wouldn't it?

SPEAKER_01:

Jack said that it was disgusting, but it got you good and proper drunk. So it's all you everything had an O on the end, didn't it?

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah. So perhaps they invented polos. Pruno, polo.

SPEAKER_01:

What the game or the f or the uh whole I don't know.

SPEAKER_04:

Did Frank Bruno come from there?

SPEAKER_01:

Well he could have done, couldn't he?

unknown:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

Br Bruno Polo Polo shirts, polo mints, the polo game, water polo. Oh there's all sorts of things I invented over there. Yeah. Do you think Bono comes from there?

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah, it's wasted, isn't he? It was just it was just like Bon.

SPEAKER_01:

I thought he was Irish. Yeah. Probably did then. And Boney, the dog treat, probably ended up coming from over there. Called Boneyo.

SPEAKER_04:

The gravy granules.

SPEAKER_01:

Oxo. Oxo, mate, yeah. You'd have been you'd been Neo. Alright, Neil Oh.

SPEAKER_04:

I don't know. There's loads of stuff coming from over there.

SPEAKER_01:

I bet there is. I said to you's life in nineteen sixty-eight was about to take a dramatic turn.

SPEAKER_04:

It did say dramatic turn. Dramatic turn.

SPEAKER_01:

While they're inside these two, these pair. No, while these two were inside.

SPEAKER_04:

Oh right, okay. That's a bit wrong, isn't it? While these two were got back to his old school days.

SPEAKER_01:

While these two were inside their overly large cell with their debating societies and things, Neil, hello Neil.

SPEAKER_05:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

Began writing plays. So do you see now I say the word dramatic had several meaning? And he was finding that he was pretty good at it too.

SPEAKER_04:

Mm-hmm. Well, in his own opinion.

SPEAKER_01:

Well no, lots of people were saying he was good at it. I mean, he's Australian, so he was no Shakespeare. If you're English, you just turn out Shakespeare, don't you? That's what we do. But no, he they he was a he was a crimp, but he was quite good at it too. And our our friend Jack took to painting to find out he was fairly good at that as well. He eventually painted portraits of his fellow inmates that many of them kept once they were released. Nice. But it was McNeil's plays that really started to attract attention with characters based on real inmates, including Jack Calsen himself. His plays were set in a single cell or easy to put on, and a company was formed called the Mess Hall Players that perform McNeil's plays and other works, not only to prisoners and staff, but to the fee-paying public who would enter the prison gates to witness Australia's prison playwright. Ooh. So this is this is McNeil. Yeah. Jack found, as well as having a talent for painting, he was something of a natural theatre actor.

SPEAKER_04:

A charismatic Exactly.

SPEAKER_01:

A charismatic presence treading the boards.

SPEAKER_04:

A bit of a thespian.

SPEAKER_01:

Alas, poor Yorick. I knew him Horatio.

SPEAKER_04:

Oh I love him. He's so good. I love him. He's such a darling. Things like that.

SPEAKER_01:

But I don't think you go through a prison calling people darling, do you?

SPEAKER_04:

Well, the actors do, don't they? They call everyone darling and love everybody. Everyone loves him.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, but in prison that could get you in a in a bit of a situation.

SPEAKER_04:

It depends on what you're into. If you're like a bit of a golden golden gay time.

SPEAKER_01:

Could be a miscommunication, couldn't it? So McNeil. Hello, Neil. After Jack proved himself a charismatic presence treading the boards. McNeil was released in 1974. And if you check back through the records, that was an actual year.

SPEAKER_05:

Yep.

SPEAKER_01:

And almost instantly became a star. Star, that's what you wanted.

SPEAKER_05:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

He was invited to the swankiest parties, and I have to be careful how I say that. The swankiest parties with Australia's in crowd. He even married an actress and won prestigious awards. So when you say, yeah, he was right in his plays and he was good in his opinion. No, he wasn't. He was good in everyone's opinion. He had a hit.

SPEAKER_04:

I take that back now. I take that back now, okay? Right. Calm down.

SPEAKER_01:

Jack had to serve another two years without his mate, and was released in 1976. But when he was, McNeil gave him starring roles in his plays, which in turn led to him being offered some parts in TV shows. So Jack Jack's life was definitely on the up. He met and married a lady called Ivanka Jugum.

SPEAKER_04:

Ivanka Chugum.

SPEAKER_01:

Jugum.

SPEAKER_04:

Oh Jugum.

SPEAKER_01:

I think she was a Slavic.

SPEAKER_04:

That sort of name Ivanka.

SPEAKER_01:

Ivanka Jugum. Jack and Ivanka, who he called Eve, so we'll stick with that. Had two children, Heidi and Jim McNeil Carlson. So he even named his son after his mate.

SPEAKER_05:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

Jim McNeil Carlson. They were happy together for a while until associations from Jack and Eve's past lives caught up with them in a convoluted heap of criminals, love triangles, and psychopathic serial killers.

SPEAKER_04:

It sounds like life in Northampton.

SPEAKER_01:

It does, I was gonna say for you, that's just another Tuesday, isn't it? But for for Jack and Eve, that was a whole heap of mess coming their way. A couple came involved in busting someone called Australia's Charles Manson, a dangerous psychopathic raving loon by the name of Barry Quinn, out of jail.

SPEAKER_04:

Sound very psychopathic, didn't it? Charles Manson sounds good, isn't it? Barry Quinn.

SPEAKER_01:

Well, I my name's Barry Quinn. Barry Quinn was the one-time boyfriend of Eve. And there had been many attempts to get him out of jail, but Jack had a solution that involved fake medical emergencies and clambering through hospital windows. He was good, Jack. Jack knew how to escape from places.

SPEAKER_04:

He did, didn't he? Wow.

SPEAKER_01:

He did. And it worked.

SPEAKER_04:

It didn't.

SPEAKER_01:

An Eve freed Quinn, along with Eve, who had played the part in the hospital of his concerned girlfriend, went to lay low until some of the heat died down. So what had happened was they'd got this Barry Quinn. Hello, my name's Barry Quinn. They got him to fake an emergency, medical emergency. Something worse than that. I think they gave him some sort of drug that that sort of slowed his heartbeat down or something like that. Could have been Manflu, could have been any, let's face it, you in Australia, could be anything, couldn't it? Any tropical disease, pick one.

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah. Bitten by an ant.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, exactly. One of those spiders over there. You've got the toilet lid and there's a spider the size of your face. So what they did anyway, they face.

SPEAKER_04:

If a spider's in a toilet, why are you putting your face near it to see what how big it is? What are you doing with your head near a toilet?

SPEAKER_01:

I was just using the size of your face for our listener, who's who should still be with us, hopefully. Hello, listener. Hope you're doing well. Our listener would like to think, well, how big are these spiders? And I say, they're roughly the size of your face. So the listener then immediately thinks, okay, I can now picture that.

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah, but everyone's got a different sized face.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, but you know what I mean? That's big for a spider, isn't it?

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah, you could have said like 15 centimetres, and then that's a specific size. Everyone knows about it.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, but I don't know.

SPEAKER_04:

But I'm concerned about your your head being near a toilet.

SPEAKER_01:

I don't know the biological ins and outs of Australia's arachne population. So I can't tell you the size of the city.

SPEAKER_04:

Well, there you go. That's anyway.

SPEAKER_01:

This has nothing to do with our story. Let's just carry on willy-nilly, shall we?

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah. They were good in the eighties. When they fin when they nilly, what were they called?

SPEAKER_01:

Willy-nilly. Millie Vanilly. They weren't good in the eighties because they they were cheats.

SPEAKER_04:

Sorry. You know it's true. Girl. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

Yes. It worked. Anyway, a nudie freaked Queen along with Eve who played the part in the hospital was concerned. Girlfriend went to lay low until some of the heat had died down. We've covered this.

SPEAKER_04:

Yes.

SPEAKER_01:

He climbed out anyway, he was pretending he was ill, he wasn't that ill. Once they got him in the hospital down there, and Eve was with him, they shoved him out the window. She followed him out the window. Jack helped them escape. But things turned sour quickly, because Jack, while out one evening, as he was his wont to do, strolling down the street.

SPEAKER_04:

Can do, he's a free man.

SPEAKER_01:

He's a free man, nothing stopping him. He was shot from a passing vehicle.

SPEAKER_04:

What just randomly or?

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah. Shot in the leg from a passing vehicle.

SPEAKER_04:

Fair enough. Just in the wrong place at the wrong time.

SPEAKER_01:

The trouble is, he was in the state of Victoria where he couldn't go to the police or seek medical attention because there he was still a wanted man.

SPEAKER_05:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

So they still had a warrant out on him for his previous misdemeanours. Then Eve, who was in hiding with Hello, my name's Baby Quinn.

SPEAKER_04:

Baby Quinn.

SPEAKER_01:

Baby Quinn? She didn't return from hiding out, even though he was caught 69 days after his breakout. So Jack was only thinking, well, where's she gone then?

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

Because 69 days.

SPEAKER_04:

Where's Michelle gone?

SPEAKER_01:

Where's Mayor's Michelle gone, mate? Tragically, her body was found with a blood-soaked copy of the Melbourne Herald dated 16th of November 1978, and she'd been shot.

SPEAKER_04:

As well.

SPEAKER_01:

So had she been shot on the 16th of November, or did someone throw that there? We don't know. We just don't know. But she was shot, um whereas Jack was shot in the leg. Eve was shot deaded. Oh. So it's very tragic, isn't it? Prime and criminals had moved on to a more violent era, and Jack Carlson did not want any further part in this. He and the children moved from town to town poaching the odd sheep. I don't think that meant like putting a sheep into boiling water. I think it meant stealing the odd sheep.

SPEAKER_04:

Okay.

SPEAKER_01:

Liberating the odd vegetable or two.

unknown:

Again.

SPEAKER_04:

Liberating them is that like digging them out of the ground and letting them free. Go free, carrot, go free.

SPEAKER_01:

Or robbing the odd grocery store of what they needed.

SPEAKER_04:

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_01:

So they're l they were living on the land, basically, and they did that for the year.

SPEAKER_04:

Yes, they were, weren't they? Hand to mouth.

SPEAKER_01:

Hand to mouth, and he was showing his children bushcraft and how to survive in the outback of the wild Australia's.

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah, how to deal with the bush.

SPEAKER_01:

Yes, but the bush as in the geographic area of the Australia in a not bush as in what you were thinking of.

SPEAKER_04:

You done it wasn't. I was thinking of um the what you said the first bit, didn't filthy pig. They have to learn the the art of the bush.

SPEAKER_01:

One day Jack had a bit of a a bit of a brainwave. I don't know what was the matter with him on this day, but one day he decided to show Jim this is his son Jim. Decided to show Jim the art of cracking a safe. He chose a safe in an estate agent's during opening hours while the staff were still in there. Of course they called it.

SPEAKER_04:

I can just show my son how to crack this safe.

unknown:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

Of course they called the police, and when they arrived, Jack riled them into beating them with their batons. And all the time pretending to enjoy it, and even helping himself to a quick choke of the chicken. If you get where I'm coming from. No, I don't. He was pretending to enjoy it and he enjoyed it rather too much. I mean imagine being his kids.

SPEAKER_04:

Your dad's there getting beaten by batons, and then he's trying to pull hot white coconuts from the veiny palm tree. Is that what you're trying to say?

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, I mean, imagine that. Imagine watching that. He hoped to prove himself mad and get sent to a mental hospital rather than prison because they were easier to break out of.

SPEAKER_05:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

And he was sent to a mental hospital. And he did break out of it. Jack Carlson was only ever arrested once more in his entire life, and it was the 11th of October 1991.

SPEAKER_04:

A long time ago. But long time after he escaped from for his misdemeanours.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, so he kind of knew what he was doing, I suppose, but his ch his children must have been.

SPEAKER_04:

He knew how to pull it off.

SPEAKER_01:

Oh, I see what he did there.

SPEAKER_04:

Thank you. Thank you.

SPEAKER_01:

That's very good.

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah, you're welcome.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah. You said that with a bit of relish.

SPEAKER_04:

I did. Yes.

SPEAKER_01:

This is 11th of October 1991, okay? So Jack was treating his friend to lunch at a restaurant in Fortitude Valley in Queensland this time. So it's getting around Australia, isn't he?

SPEAKER_04:

I don't know. I don't know geographically of Australia. It's too big.

SPEAKER_01:

It's not Brisbane, is it?

SPEAKER_04:

I don't know.

SPEAKER_01:

I don't know where is Brisbane. I don't know. Yeah. It's it's in Australia.

SPEAKER_04:

Yes, over there somewhere. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

Roughly roughly the same size as the other one. You would, wouldn't you? Yeah. Yeah. I've been actually, do I tell you?

SPEAKER_04:

No, you've not said that, no.

SPEAKER_01:

No, yeah, I've I've I've spent a lot of time in Sydney. Oh, okay. Both. Yeah. It was a long flight in Sydney just had to be sitting in the seat next to me. He was treating a friend to lunch at a restaurant in 42 Valley in Queensland. He'd been there so many times it'd often get Treated to a complimentary drink. She was a bit of a regular.

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

In fact, he'd been there so many times he'd caught the attention of a fraud investigator working for American Express. It turns out that someone in the area had wrapped up quite a bill using stolen credit cards.

SPEAKER_04:

Well, do you think it was our man?

SPEAKER_01:

According to a police detective who was called to the scene, a restaurant worker pointed out Jack to the investigator because he was certain he had presented cards in two different names in the past. Now that's not unlikely, is it? Because we know Jack has got some aliases going on.

SPEAKER_04:

Yes, it was it was Helmet Marksman.

SPEAKER_01:

Helmet Marksman, his his real name is Cecil Edwards.

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

And Jack Carlson is just the name he made up and pulled out of his ass. So yeah, who knows?

SPEAKER_04:

Pull Jack out your ass, you're doing alright.

SPEAKER_01:

The investigator immediately recognised his prey and called in the police. Or the or the police o, I suppose I might call them over there. They're called Coppers. And said he had one of Queensland's most wanted cornered. Because the call had gone out that an international gangster had been cornered. So this is escalating, isn't it? That escalating corner.

SPEAKER_04:

It sounds like it is.

SPEAKER_01:

Police surrounded the restaurant and were beaten to it by the waiting media who had been tipped off. The arrested officer said Jack was as calm as anything. He was happy to go with us, he said. Well, as happy as you can be to be arrested until he saw the media, and that's when he just went berserk.

SPEAKER_04:

Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, I'm getting excited. I think I know what it is. No, no, no, no, no, no, not that far.

SPEAKER_01:

Jack's rant made the news. He knew he was innocent, and apparently as soon as the cop car drove away, he said that was fun and returned to absolute calmness. It was his resemblance to either a genuine international gangster or a notorious dine and das merchant, a Hungarian chess player named Paul Charles Dozer that landed him in bother. No one realised that they actually did have a known criminal with outstanding arrest warrants and a history of daring prison escapes. So that's why Jack was let free the following day with nothing more than an apology. It wasn't until 2006 that someone uploaded the clip to the internet of his arrest outside this restaurant that it took the world by storm. It's become one of the biggest memes ever, with millions upon millions of views, merchandise is available, and despite a mystery as to who Mr. Dremocracy Manifest was, Jack Carlson or Cecil Edwards eventually felt secure enough to appear on Australian TV. He sold paintings of the arrest right up until he died of prostate cancer in 2024. Was he a succulent Chinese meal? It was a succulent Chinese meal.

SPEAKER_04:

So he was, I thought he wasn't the Krim, but he was a Krim.

SPEAKER_01:

He was a Krim.

SPEAKER_04:

Wow.

SPEAKER_01:

He had existing arrest warrants out for him when he was arrested. But they just let him go because he wasn't.

SPEAKER_04:

All right. See, you know your judo well.

SPEAKER_03:

Not assuring anything. One couple.

SPEAKER_04:

Oh, I see you know your judo well. Ah, yes. There he is.

SPEAKER_01:

And you, sir, are you ready to accept my limp penis? How dare you! The greatest arrest in history. Without question. And listener, if you haven't actually seen this, you can find it all over the internet on YouTube. We have played a clip for you of the audio, but of course, the actual visual recording has been made and it is widely, widely available. And I think Neil would join me. Hello, Neil. Bonjour. Will you join me in recommending to our listener that they, if they haven't already seen it, they spend a little bit of time researching Jack Carlson's arrest. Yes, and um and looking at it. You probably won't find it listed as Jack Carlson, but you'll certainly find it as Democracy Manifest.

SPEAKER_04:

Or succulent Chinese meal.

SPEAKER_01:

Or suck that's another name, but people called it by that. But it is the greatest arrest in all history. A man became a legend on the back of that.

SPEAKER_04:

You sir. Are you doing it except my limped penis? How dare you!

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, it's absolutely brilliant. So there we go, listener. We've wasted your time again with another episode of Honourable Mentions, though. And we look forward to seeing you next week, where we will come back to you with another episode of Honorable Mentions, though, booty. But we don't know whether it'll be in Australia in honourable mentions. I don't think it will.

SPEAKER_04:

Well, we should need time to travel back.

SPEAKER_01:

But I tell you what, we can go anywhere in the world. They can't stop us now.

SPEAKER_04:

No.

SPEAKER_01:

Thank you. Thank you, Louis.

SPEAKER_04:

Starship said, nothing's gonna stop us now. Was that Starship?

SPEAKER_01:

I thought you it was, yeah. I thought you were gonna start singing it.

SPEAKER_04:

No. I did things like that. I'll let the listeners get that into their head and they'll think, oh, I might listen to that one. I like that song.

SPEAKER_01:

No, they won't, because they'll be too busy googling Democracy Manifest.

SPEAKER_04:

Oh yeah, of course of all.

SPEAKER_01:

And listening to other episodes of Honourable Mentions, of course. Which are available wherever you stream your podcasts.

SPEAKER_04:

And if you found that might be, Stephen.

SPEAKER_01:

Yes, if you found this episode, I'm sure you can find others.

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah. Just just you know, use a bit of common sense.

SPEAKER_01:

Well, listener, we would like to really say thank you because we do mean it. I know we say it at the end of every episode, but we do mean it, don't we, Neil?

SPEAKER_04:

I do, I I mean it fruitfully.

SPEAKER_01:

You mean it fruitfully, do you?

SPEAKER_04:

Yes, I do, uh with relish.

SPEAKER_01:

Or gentlemen's or no.

SPEAKER_04:

Just regular gentleman's relishes his own private kingdom.

SPEAKER_01:

See you don't you don't bother spraying that everywhere. So thank you, listener, once again, for joining us for another exciting look back in time at someone who led an extraordinary life.

SPEAKER_04:

He did lead an extraordinary life, didn't he?

SPEAKER_01:

He did lead an extraordinary life. Not necessarily on the right side of the law. But you know, he was he was just a good old boy, wasn't he? Never meaning no harm.

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah. Been in trouble with the law.

SPEAKER_01:

It's all you ever saw. Been in trouble with the law since the day he was born. He had kind of sums him up nicely. But yeah, there we go. Thank you, listener. Once again, we keep saying that, but we do do mean it, really. I go to bed every night. I go to bed every night and close my eyes and think, hello, dear baby Jesus. Thank you for our listener. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

SPEAKER_04:

That sounds a bit wrong, stop it. Sounds a bit creepy, doesn't it? Yeah, plug it in. Thank you. Stop it.

SPEAKER_01:

But there we go. Well, join us next week for another episode of Honourable Mentions, you slag.

SPEAKER_04:

Bye.

SPEAKER_01:

You have to say bye now.

SPEAKER_04:

Uh bye.

SPEAKER_00:

Good day, listener. It's me, Margot Robbie off of the films and that. You can't tell by my accent that I'm Australian. No, really. I enjoy a good old, succulent Chinese meal as well as the next IV. I just happened to say thank you for doing my name to honorable mentions over real salary. I actually met Steve wants, but he doesn't like to talk about it. But I still know how much you need to have any other one.