A Whodunnit of the 1996 Port Arthur Masacre
by Mary W Maxwell, PhD, LLB

In his 2002 book (in CD format), Stewart Beattie brings forth much original research about the Port Arthur massacre. As to what happened that day, I think Beattie has nailed it.

I wish the name of his book were not "The Gunsmith’s Notebook" -- as only the first quarter of the book is about guns. Stewart is a man of many parts.

I’ll now report what he says. If I need to interject my own thoughts I will make it clear that it is me; otherwise it is Beattie.

Pseudonyms
Beattie is very bold in stating the names of many Australians who were present on the day and who he considers to be guilty of crimes related to the massacre.

I have decided to make up pseudonyms for them. However in the case of politicians, high-ranking officials, or court personnel, I will say the name.

For example, it is clear to me that Tasmania’s attorney-general Ray Groom was involved, as was the police commissioner Richard McCreadie.

It is clear that the DPP (Director of Public Prosecutions) Damian Bugg, “threw the case” and that the judge, Willliam Cox, went along with it, as did Bryant’s lawyer John Avery. I think prime minister John Howard was in on it.

I will also identify, among the deceased, the ones that Stewart Beattie says worked for ASIO. In fact I can get that over with now: Robert and Helene Salzmann, Rosemary Nixon, Jim Pollard, Tony Kirstan, and Anthony Nightingale.

Prior to the Event
There was action at Seascape (a B&B) starting at least as early as 2pm on Sunday, April 28, 1996, the day of the massacre. However, Beattie also tells us about the previous day. He places two females, sisters from interstate, at the Seascape cottage on the Saturday night, “Marie and Susie.”

Stwewart Beattie says, in "The Gunsmith's Notebook," that the sisters went off at night to do the Ghost Tour at Port Arthur. He thinks they must have settled in to the cottage by 4pm, and then driven to the tour.

On April 18th Ray Groom -- who had until 6 weeks before been the state premier of Tasmania -- had attended the Ghost Tour (as though he needed to get the lay of the land at the Port Arthur Historic Site, the PAHS).

Beattie postulates that the owners of the cottage, David Martin and his wife Noelene, nicknamed Sally, were present to receive these paying guests, Marie and Susie. I doubt it. I would expect the CIA to have bumped them off Saturday, and hid their bodies in the house, so they wouldn’t upset Sunday’s program.

An Aside. A word about the CIA. I have no idea which covert agency – or as they say “intelligence agency” – ran the massacre. I will very loosely attribute it to the “CIA.” I am sure some local persons were in on it. Beattie identifies them.

For example, he accuses the cop "Pierre" of throwing a grenade into the BMW to set it alight in front of Seascape cottage at 2pm. He names suspicious employees of the PAHS and a BCI cop Barney who he thinks may have fired shots at 5pm.

Andrew MacGregor, a retired Victorian cop, says Mossad was there in the person of Ari Ben Menashe. I have seen a photo of Ari at the PAHS that day. But he could work for an agency other than Mossad, despite his claiming to be Mossad.

MacGregor also thinks – but I don’t agree, that the late Perth resident known as Joe Vialls, is one and the same person as Ari Ben Menasche.

But I do think the person who furnished many juicy articles to the Internet – about Port Arthur and other events such as the 2004 tsunami – using the name Vialls, is a covert agent and an expert at disinformation.

Ben Menashe may be a dissident within the “CIA” who’s trying to help us. Unfortunately we just can’t know these things.

The Café Shootings—Sunday Afternoon
A man drove into the PAHS around 1.10pm, first paying his entry fee at the tollbooth. He was in a yellow Volvo, with a surfboard on the roof. Parking lot attendant Alan Kingston told him not to park near the water’s edge but he disobeyed.

The man had long blond hair and a long coat.

He went in to the café to buy his lunch. I will sometimes call him “the gunman” but also give him a fake name: Henry Caboodle. I want to steer the reader off thinking it is Martin Bryant. It’s clear to many of us that Brynt was not at PAHS.

Henry carried his food, on a tray, out to the balcony and sat at a table. At 1.30 – perhaps because he received a go-ahead signal from someone – he took his sports bag and camera, and dinner tray, into the café.

He took a rifle out of the bag and quickly killed people, some with a single shot. He used his right hand on the trigger and the gun was held at hip height.

Then he took his gun and a sports bag out to his car. He shot a few more people who were standing near a bus, and then went into the bus and killed the driver.

Tollbooth Killings: 7
He got into his car and drive up towards the entry point, the tollbooth. In a moment he encountered a woman and two small children whom he also killed. At this point four ASIO people were waiting to rendezvous with him at the tollbooth.

A gold or mustard BMW was parked there. In it were sitting the Salzmanns, Jim Pollard, and Rosemary Nixon. Amazingly, Henry killed them all, with a total of five bullets. He then abandoned his yellow Volvo and drove away in the BMW.

A few minutes later he stopped at the General Store, run by Jim Laycock. A white Corolla car there had a man and woman in it. Henry ordered the man, Glen Pears, to get in the boot, and then he killed the woman, Zoe Hall.

Henry then drove away quickly, with the “hostage” in the boot. He headed for Seascape, only kilometers away.

When he got to the driveway that leads into Seascape, he stood on the verge and shot at four passing cars. No deaths but only injuries resulted, including was the wife of a staffer at Canadian embassy in Canberra.

Stewart Beattie says this was planned so it would stir Canadians up for gun control. I believe him.

Henry then entered the cottage at 2pm. A cop named" Jerry" was inside (Bryant’s handler) ready to coordinate everything. Beattie speculates that Glen Pears remained in the boot and burned to death when a cop named "Pierre" threw a grenade at the car, perhaps to make all evidence (fingerprints) disappear.

The real Martin Bryant was in the cottage, maybe drugged and asleep. He was first heard in a phone call with negotiator Terry McCarthy. Soon two cops showed up – PJ Allen and Garry Whittle. They lay down in a ditch as someone from inside the cottage was shooting at them.

They expected to be sent to shoot the baddy but their superiors told them not to shoot. “Permission denied. This has to happen.” Some SES folks overheard that on radio and have complained about it for years.

Meanwhile at PAHS, Wendy Scurr and others were helping the wounded, and hundreds of scared tourists. Astonishingly they did not get police protection until 7.30.

Ambulances helicopters did transport the wounded to Hobart. Some went to the Fox and Hounds Hotel. Three gunshots at 5pm made people think the gunman had come back.

Many Operatives
Beattie notes that an ASIO man named "Gareth" entered the café as though to inspect the bodies. The same man acted as the boss of the one pay phone, so each person who wanted to call home had to give his/her message to "Gareth."

The son of Gareth, "Arnold", a marksman, may have been the gunman. It is said that "Arnold" committed suicide 6 months later.

"Marie and Susie" seemed to have a CIA role to play, namely to man a second yellow Volvo which they held near the Clougha building.

They drove away without logging out. (All visitors with cars had had their license plate noted on entering.) The sisters may have flown back to the mainland on Sunday night.

Another vehicle that deserves a mention is a black van with Commonwealth licence plates and darkened windows. It was parked in front of the Broad Arrow Café for at least two hours after the massacre. It can be seen in a video.

By 5pm or so, there was a lot of activity at Seascape including a shooter being seen on the roof of one of the outbuildings. The two cops in a ditch report that gunfire was coming at them but it seemed to be aimed around them rather than at them.

After dark there were helicopters over the cottage. The person who was the cop SOG man (Special Operations Group) for counterterrorism, Mick Dyson, was never seen the whole day.

Phone Calls
Martin Bryant engaged in a twenty-minute phone call every hour from 6 to 9 pm with the negotiator. Bryant called himsled "Jamie" and seemed to be reading from a script.He asked for a helicopter ride to Hobart and then a connection to Adelaide.

Terry asked him how other people in the house were doing. Martin said he had cooked food for them and put David and Sally into a double bed. At one point he complained “You are shining a light on your main man,” apparently referring to a cop inside.

Martin admitted he had kidnapped a hostage and put him in the boot of his car. The point of a hostage is that it justifies a role for federal police. (It’s my belief that he really did do this around midday, and that the hostage was" Jerry," his handler. The purpose would be to make Martin feel guilty later.)

On Monday morning, Officer Bob Fielding said “we forced Bryant to come to us” presumably meaning “we” set fire to Seascape to smoke him out. Martin came out after 8am with his back on fire and was arrested. Poor bugger.

This Must Stop
Presumably if Australians had read Beattie’s book they would have agreed with him. I have not listed here the many clever ways in which Beattie proves his case. It seems watertight. He is especially good at interpreting gaps in the police evidence.

Beattie’s book points up the way of life of these strange killers as absolutely crazy. Imagine spending your whole life in a clandestine club, hurting people and then putting on a smile when you bump into them on the street.

This must stop. I know we can do better because I remember living in a society where that sort of thing did not happen and people would definitely not have tolerated it.

These criminals themselves are pathetic, and even if they have convinced themselves that they won’t get in trouble they are already “wanted.” It would be a good idea for them to seek some way out of this mess.

I am claiming that “the CIA” did it. I use the term CIA to mean the slaves that serve the very few at the top. If six ASIO people were killed, and a Canadian embassy person wounded, and other coverts can see this was a trap, doesn’t their anger crop up? Don’t they see what Diane Keaton saw in The Godfather?

I believe the putrid people at the very top must be far more destructive than we are in the habit of imagining. Whatever could justify these massacres, which are occurring more and more all the time?

I say put a stop to it. Call their bluff. Get real. Stop living in a fantasy awhere you have to cover up your thoughts and emotions all the time.

-- Mary W Maxwell is co-author of a new book about the legal issues of this case, “Port Arthur: Enough Is Enough”
The link below takes you to GumshoeNews.com at which website there is a free download of that book.