WEBVTT - Diamonds, toecutters and a scared little boy 0:00:01.120 --> 0:00:04.280 She had a great demeanor, she had great charisma, She 0:00:04.400 --> 0:00:07.880 was a very fine dresser, and she was a marvelous 0:00:07.960 --> 0:00:12.840 con artist. They became party to a plot to pull 0:00:13.119 --> 0:00:20.040 Australia's first armored car cash heist, and there it is 0:00:20.160 --> 0:00:23.479 said that what became known as the toe Cutter Gang 0:00:23.760 --> 0:00:27.440 got its name because they tortured Baldi Blair to get 0:00:27.480 --> 0:00:31.280 him to reveal where his cash was. I'm Andrew ruled 0:00:31.480 --> 0:00:34.600 his life in crimes. One of the big names in 0:00:34.720 --> 0:00:37.640 crime back in the day, as we say, back in 0:00:37.720 --> 0:00:43.400 the sixties seventies, was a fellow called Frank Baldy Blair. 0:00:43.680 --> 0:00:46.559 His real name was Frank, his nickname was Baldi. All 0:00:46.680 --> 0:00:50.720 crooks have to have nicknames. Surname was Blair, b l Air. 0:00:51.840 --> 0:00:54.360 Baldy Blair came from Melbourne. He was one of that 0:00:54.640 --> 0:00:58.680 crew of inner suburban heavyweights who came out of the 0:00:58.720 --> 0:01:04.000 mean streets of Richmond, Port, Melbourne, etc. Collingwood. He ended 0:01:04.040 --> 0:01:06.800 up on the docks or hanging around the docks, like 0:01:06.840 --> 0:01:10.280 a lot of heavies did in those days, and in fact, 0:01:10.600 --> 0:01:14.440 like good Melbourne crooks did. Then he became a painter 0:01:14.520 --> 0:01:18.480 and docker. Something like three quarters of the membership of 0:01:18.560 --> 0:01:23.320 the painters and dockers were people with extensive criminal records, 0:01:23.440 --> 0:01:26.880 a little bit like the modern day CFMU, some would suggest, 0:01:27.280 --> 0:01:30.440 but I'd suggest the painters and dockers were more criminal 0:01:30.520 --> 0:01:33.959 than the CFMU and had a lot of very violent 0:01:34.080 --> 0:01:37.600 men on its books. And one of them was Baldy Blair. 0:01:37.640 --> 0:01:41.760 And Baldy Blair in the late sixties he and others 0:01:41.959 --> 0:01:45.880 ran some big scams on the waterfront. And what they 0:01:45.959 --> 0:01:50.480 used to do if they weren't stealing cargo by the 0:01:50.520 --> 0:01:55.000 container load or whatever or by the shipload, they were 0:01:55.480 --> 0:01:58.760 running contraband and they would be bringing in in those 0:01:58.880 --> 0:02:03.880 days a lot of hash and cannabis products from the 0:02:03.920 --> 0:02:08.160 Golden Triangle, things like that, and selling it on what 0:02:08.320 --> 0:02:14.440 was then the burgeoning emerging drug market. Baldi was pretty 0:02:14.440 --> 0:02:17.120 good at this. They had some good schemes going. They 0:02:17.160 --> 0:02:20.840 would mark a particular container I think it was with 0:02:21.760 --> 0:02:24.679 pornographic pictures so they knew which one was the one 0:02:24.720 --> 0:02:27.600 with the hash in it. They would then load it 0:02:27.680 --> 0:02:30.440 up onto a truck and take it off the docks 0:02:30.480 --> 0:02:32.600 and unload it and sell it for lots of money. 0:02:32.960 --> 0:02:34.720 Too much of a good thing is never a good thing. 0:02:34.800 --> 0:02:38.320 Because the authorities worked out what they're up to, and 0:02:38.360 --> 0:02:40.280 then other crooks worked out what they were up to. 0:02:40.360 --> 0:02:44.520 And in the end Baldy Blair went to Sydney and 0:02:44.560 --> 0:02:48.760 there he reinvented himself as a stick up man and 0:02:49.200 --> 0:02:52.560 Melbourne crooks like him had a bit of a reputation 0:02:52.680 --> 0:02:58.240 in Sydney for being uncompromising hard guys, and Baldi Blair 0:02:58.240 --> 0:03:01.040 had with him made of his called Steve Nitty's and 0:03:01.120 --> 0:03:05.720 Steve Nitty's alias the Bomber, was a former boxer who 0:03:05.760 --> 0:03:08.919 used to train at Richmond at the late Great Leo 0:03:09.000 --> 0:03:13.800 Berry's gym. I think Nittys might have had a national 0:03:14.040 --> 0:03:17.680 title belt. He was pretty good at it, but he 0:03:17.840 --> 0:03:21.480 gave up boxing eventually and became a gunman and heavy 0:03:21.840 --> 0:03:25.040 and he got his nickname the Bomber because he blew 0:03:25.120 --> 0:03:28.600 up a nightclub with a bomb or threatened to. And 0:03:28.800 --> 0:03:31.840 these guys land in Sydney and set themselves up in 0:03:31.880 --> 0:03:35.040 the robbery business, and it comes to pass that they 0:03:35.080 --> 0:03:40.080 would sit around at the Oceanic Hotel in Kuji and 0:03:40.880 --> 0:03:44.280 they'd held up with some Sydney crooks and they'd sit 0:03:44.320 --> 0:03:48.520 around and plan jobs, and they'd received Stalin Goods and 0:03:48.560 --> 0:03:51.040 Salem and they'd plan robberies and do them and all 0:03:51.080 --> 0:03:55.120 the rest of the criminal stuff, and Baldy had taken up. 0:03:55.320 --> 0:03:59.040 Soon after he went to Sydney, he went to Checkers nightclub. 0:03:59.080 --> 0:04:01.640 I think it was called in Sydney. There was also 0:04:01.720 --> 0:04:05.200 one in Melbourne, I think, but there was one in Sydney. 0:04:05.280 --> 0:04:09.400 And he went there and he met a most beautiful 0:04:09.760 --> 0:04:12.960 scallywag woman called Patricia. Now we're going to call her 0:04:12.960 --> 0:04:17.640 Patricia Blair because they either got married or they had 0:04:17.680 --> 0:04:20.400 a de facto relationship, but she was known later on 0:04:20.440 --> 0:04:25.400 as Patricia Blair took his name. She was a very 0:04:25.520 --> 0:04:29.120 beautiful woman, and she was very confident. She had a 0:04:29.160 --> 0:04:32.240 great demeanor, she had great charisma, She was a very 0:04:32.320 --> 0:04:36.400 fine dresser, and she was a marvelous con artist and 0:04:36.480 --> 0:04:40.120 also very nimble. She could steal things, and she was 0:04:40.200 --> 0:04:45.640 quite a high end jewel thief, among other attributes. And Baldy, 0:04:46.160 --> 0:04:49.400 the sort of rough, tough bulldog of a man, and 0:04:49.520 --> 0:04:54.000 the beautiful jewel thief became an item. And at this 0:04:54.200 --> 0:04:57.640 point Patricia already had a little, tiny boy, a little 0:04:57.640 --> 0:05:02.320 boy called Larry. Now Larry's batural father was not Baldy Blair. 0:05:02.360 --> 0:05:05.120 He was someone else. And we don't need to worry 0:05:05.160 --> 0:05:09.400 about who that is. But Baldy became that little boy's father, 0:05:09.520 --> 0:05:13.120 the only father he knew, and the little boy, Larry 0:05:13.160 --> 0:05:16.960 became known as Larry Blair. And there they were, mister 0:05:17.000 --> 0:05:21.520 and missus Blair and their son Larry, and the other 0:05:21.600 --> 0:05:24.920 crooks used to call Larry little Lord Fauntleroy because his mother, 0:05:24.960 --> 0:05:28.640 Patricia would dress him beautifully, mostly in stolen clothes from 0:05:29.279 --> 0:05:33.200 high end shops that she'd rob, and he'd have silk 0:05:33.240 --> 0:05:35.400 shirts and all the rest of it, in beautiful leather 0:05:35.480 --> 0:05:39.839 shoes and all this good stuff. And the rough hard 0:05:40.200 --> 0:05:43.360 arm robbers and others and burglars and stand over men 0:05:43.400 --> 0:05:47.320 and gunman who drank with Baldy Blair at the OSHI 0:05:47.640 --> 0:05:51.640 as they call it, the Oceanic Hotel, would laugh at 0:05:51.640 --> 0:05:54.479 this little boy when he came along to snip dad 0:05:54.520 --> 0:05:57.680 for five dollars to go surfing or whatever, and they 0:05:57.720 --> 0:05:59.880 call him thortle Roy and joke with him and buy 0:06:00.120 --> 0:06:04.120 my raspberry lemonade Da da da da dam. And little 0:06:04.200 --> 0:06:07.960 did the little boy know, and he's he's seven eight 0:06:08.120 --> 0:06:10.760 nine ten, that sort of age group. Little did he 0:06:10.839 --> 0:06:14.000 realize that the men that his father hung around with 0:06:14.080 --> 0:06:17.120 these friends of his father's were a very treacherous and 0:06:17.200 --> 0:06:21.600 violent crowd. But he did sense that they weren't all 0:06:22.000 --> 0:06:26.880 nice people. He had that child's sense of not only 0:06:26.880 --> 0:06:31.320 of innocence, but of sensing that some people meant no good. 0:06:31.320 --> 0:06:33.560 And he sensed that some of them were pretty bad 0:06:33.680 --> 0:06:37.159 dudes indeed, and that he thought they had false smiles 0:06:37.240 --> 0:06:41.239 and so on. And he was right, as events would prove. 0:06:42.600 --> 0:06:47.840 And one thing led to another, and Baldy Blair and 0:06:48.240 --> 0:06:51.760 Steve Nittis from Melbourne his mate, and another guy called 0:06:52.520 --> 0:06:55.240 I think Alan Jones funnily enough common name, isn't it 0:06:55.480 --> 0:06:58.920 Alan Jones. That's not Alan Jones the radio man, nor 0:06:59.040 --> 0:07:02.279 is it racing. It's just Alan Jones, who was a 0:07:02.320 --> 0:07:06.560 gunman who's now dead. They became party to a plot 0:07:06.839 --> 0:07:12.760 to pull Australia's first armored car cash heist, a robbery 0:07:12.760 --> 0:07:15.240 of an armored car never been done before. This is 0:07:15.240 --> 0:07:19.440 in nineteen seventy. They got the plan for this heist 0:07:19.680 --> 0:07:24.960 from a very clever crook called Les Woon w n 0:07:25.600 --> 0:07:28.920 known around the underworld as Wooker Look Woon. You have 0:07:29.000 --> 0:07:32.080 to have a nickname, and that was his and Wooker 0:07:32.120 --> 0:07:34.440 Woon was one of these smart crooks who used to 0:07:34.600 --> 0:07:39.400 get information inside information about money movements and all the 0:07:39.400 --> 0:07:44.080 rest of it. And he had information that a main 0:07:44.240 --> 0:07:48.600 Nicholas armored car would go around the western suburbs on 0:07:48.640 --> 0:07:51.720 a given day every week and would go to the 0:07:51.800 --> 0:07:54.920 racecourse to pick up race money from the bookies and 0:07:54.920 --> 0:07:57.920 to go to the something bank and there's something partman, 0:07:57.960 --> 0:08:00.800 there's something shops and pick up all cash and take 0:08:00.800 --> 0:08:03.360 it back to the reserve bank, so on and so forth. 0:08:04.280 --> 0:08:07.400 And it appeared that the people in the armored car 0:08:07.600 --> 0:08:12.840 had grown complacent and lazy, and instead of varying their 0:08:12.920 --> 0:08:17.360 root and their times, they stuck to a rigid timetable. 0:08:17.840 --> 0:08:20.680 And it meant that creatures of habit. These fellows, three 0:08:20.760 --> 0:08:24.200 guys in the armored car creatures of habit. Every day 0:08:24.200 --> 0:08:26.960 they would stop their armored car full of money, jam 0:08:27.000 --> 0:08:30.440 full of cash in a particular small park near a 0:08:30.520 --> 0:08:34.880 bank in the suburb of Guildford in Sydney, and there 0:08:34.920 --> 0:08:37.760 they would have their lunch. They'd pull out their sandwiches 0:08:38.440 --> 0:08:43.000 and their thumus of tea or perhaps coffee, and maybe 0:08:43.040 --> 0:08:47.080 a drink of water, and they sangers and maybe cut 0:08:47.120 --> 0:08:50.360 up an apple or an orange, you know, and have 0:08:50.440 --> 0:08:53.680 their cup of tea, and then very neat and tidy, 0:08:53.880 --> 0:08:57.360 they'd open the door of their armored vehicle and one 0:08:57.400 --> 0:08:59.640 of them would trapes across, or maybe two of them 0:08:59.640 --> 0:09:02.480 would apes across to the bin in the park and 0:09:02.520 --> 0:09:06.440 put their lunch trappers in the bin. Very tidy and 0:09:06.559 --> 0:09:10.480 good citizens, but very stupid because you are driving a 0:09:10.600 --> 0:09:14.120 van full of cash, you've pulled up and you've opened 0:09:14.160 --> 0:09:17.640 the door. You are asking for trouble. Well guess what happened. 0:09:17.880 --> 0:09:22.360 Baldy Steve Nittis and l Jones robbed them and it 0:09:22.400 --> 0:09:25.640 was the first armored car robbery in Australia, and it 0:09:25.760 --> 0:09:29.880 was a great success because the robbers all wore mirrored sunglasses. 0:09:30.160 --> 0:09:32.880 Then of great novelty mirrored hats. They had these hats 0:09:32.880 --> 0:09:35.720 with sort of little shiny things on them, which meant 0:09:35.720 --> 0:09:39.120 that anybody looking at them would see reflections of themselves, 0:09:39.320 --> 0:09:42.840 which is disconcerting. And they also wore and I love 0:09:42.920 --> 0:09:48.079 this detail, this is wonderful. They wore full length Butcher's aprons, 0:09:48.920 --> 0:09:53.079 the Butcher's uniform of the long stripey. Remember the navy 0:09:53.679 --> 0:09:56.760 and white stripes that Butcher's used to wear. That's what 0:09:56.800 --> 0:09:59.600 they had on, and it meant that all of them 0:09:59.600 --> 0:10:03.040 looks yimla. They looked a little bit odd, but the 0:10:03.080 --> 0:10:06.480 same as each other, and very difficult to distinguish from 0:10:06.480 --> 0:10:09.800 each other. You know, in general terms, you co'd say, oh, 0:10:10.000 --> 0:10:11.960 you know, one was a bit bigger than the others 0:10:12.040 --> 0:10:16.200 or something, but not much. No colors of eyes, no 0:10:16.720 --> 0:10:21.160 obvious features. They robbed the armored van of five hundred 0:10:21.200 --> 0:10:25.240 and eighty eight odd thousand dollars. Now, in nineteen seventy, 0:10:25.800 --> 0:10:29.200 ladies and gentlemen, that was a lot of money. In 0:10:29.280 --> 0:10:32.680 nineteen seventy, I was getting fifty cents a week pocket money, 0:10:32.960 --> 0:10:35.360 and fifty cents a week pocket money was like getting 0:10:35.880 --> 0:10:39.080 twenty five dollars a week now, I reckon because for 0:10:39.080 --> 0:10:41.880 fifty cents, you could make yourself sick on fish and 0:10:41.960 --> 0:10:44.040 chips for ten cents and they still have forty cents 0:10:44.120 --> 0:10:46.360 left over. You know, that would keep you going for 0:10:46.400 --> 0:10:49.000 all the other days of the week. So five hundred 0:10:49.040 --> 0:10:53.400 and eighty thousand dollars was probably the price of fifty 0:10:53.440 --> 0:10:58.439 eight houses in country towns around Australia or forty odd 0:10:58.559 --> 0:11:02.000 suburban houses around Australia. Good ones, really good ones. Back 0:11:02.040 --> 0:11:05.600 in the sixties there used to be a raffle held 0:11:05.679 --> 0:11:08.400 to raise money to build the Opera House in Sydney. 0:11:08.440 --> 0:11:11.959 The Sydney Opera House raffle was a big deal, a lottery, 0:11:12.000 --> 0:11:16.520 it was called, and the house that was the prize 0:11:16.520 --> 0:11:21.760 in that was advertised back in the pre decimal currency 0:11:21.840 --> 0:11:25.760 days as something like five pounds, you know, ten thousand dollars. 0:11:26.000 --> 0:11:28.720 So that does give you an idea of the huge 0:11:28.760 --> 0:11:33.000 amount of money that these guys got, and in our 0:11:33.040 --> 0:11:36.280 currency today it'd be worth about ten million, they say, 0:11:37.840 --> 0:11:40.640 a lot of dough. Now, half the money was to 0:11:40.640 --> 0:11:43.480 go to wook A Wound, the mastermind who'd planned it 0:11:43.520 --> 0:11:46.800 from Afar, and some of that, I think some of 0:11:46.840 --> 0:11:50.160 that half went to senior painters and dockers in Melbourne 0:11:50.200 --> 0:11:53.240 who were inclined to sort of clip the ticket of 0:11:53.360 --> 0:11:55.839 big robberies done by their members that you had to 0:11:55.920 --> 0:11:58.160 kick some back up the line to the bosses. But 0:11:58.760 --> 0:12:01.679 the other half pretty went to the three guys who 0:12:01.760 --> 0:12:04.200 got it. So they took off with about one hundred 0:12:04.240 --> 0:12:08.840 thousand dollars each, a lot of dope. And Larry Blair 0:12:08.960 --> 0:12:13.880 can recall his father coming home, coming home, turning up 0:12:13.960 --> 0:12:17.680 in a brand new v eight Valiant car. He said, 0:12:17.720 --> 0:12:20.360 the color of a fresh turd is the way that 0:12:20.880 --> 0:12:24.720 Larry described it, and blowing the horn, turning the radio 0:12:24.880 --> 0:12:27.800 full belt and saying party time, Party time. Were all 0:12:27.840 --> 0:12:31.319 going to dinner because he just pulled this massive robbery. 0:12:31.880 --> 0:12:35.640 And so they all friends and family piled into the 0:12:36.360 --> 0:12:39.520 Valiant and they went around to the best Chinese joint 0:12:39.600 --> 0:12:44.000 in Sydney and they had a massive feed, and then 0:12:44.000 --> 0:12:46.200 they had massive amounts of booze, and then they had 0:12:46.240 --> 0:12:50.160 more food and more booze until they all passed out. 0:12:50.200 --> 0:12:52.960 It was just a really big party, which was probably 0:12:53.000 --> 0:12:56.720 not a great way to not draw attention to yourself. 0:12:57.240 --> 0:12:59.920 To be buying a brand new vut car and then 0:13:00.600 --> 0:13:04.400 spending a fortune on a meal and a drink up 0:13:04.720 --> 0:13:08.320 for all your friends and family, it sort of would 0:13:08.360 --> 0:13:11.960 stand out a bit, and indeed it did attract attention 0:13:12.280 --> 0:13:16.160 from various people. And I think some of those people 0:13:16.240 --> 0:13:20.160 might have been corrupt police who in Sydney were particularly 0:13:20.240 --> 0:13:24.000 keen on knowing who had robbed anything, because they considered 0:13:24.000 --> 0:13:26.800 that they should always get a share of anything that 0:13:26.840 --> 0:13:30.559 had been robbed. In Sydney in those days, the homicide 0:13:30.600 --> 0:13:35.360 Squad would organize the murders, the breaking squad would organize 0:13:35.400 --> 0:13:37.360 the big breakings. I'm going to take a share of 0:13:37.360 --> 0:13:41.480 any big breakings, and the robbery squad would want a 0:13:41.520 --> 0:13:45.600 share of any armed robberies. And so it would be 0:13:46.480 --> 0:13:50.640 obvious that the bent Coppers of Sydney would be very 0:13:50.800 --> 0:13:55.280 keen to get their finger in the pie and get 0:13:55.360 --> 0:13:58.640 some of this doe. Now, if these hard headed Melbourne 0:13:58.640 --> 0:14:03.800 crooks weren't handing money over to their hosts in Sydney, 0:14:04.360 --> 0:14:08.360 things could turn nasty. And the bent Coppers in Sydney, 0:14:08.760 --> 0:14:13.560 notably a fellow called Freddie kray H. He was a 0:14:13.600 --> 0:14:18.120 detective sergeant. He was a very scary man. He killed people, 0:14:18.600 --> 0:14:22.480 he stood over people. He would do anything, and he 0:14:23.360 --> 0:14:27.440 supposedly had a secondhand shop of his own where stolen 0:14:27.480 --> 0:14:31.200 goods were sold, and he did contract killings. He did 0:14:31.240 --> 0:14:34.440 whatever it took. It is said. It is alleged that 0:14:34.600 --> 0:14:38.680 he and a couple of Sydney crooks said, what about 0:14:38.680 --> 0:14:41.640 these guys getting this big score? We want some of 0:14:41.680 --> 0:14:45.480 it or all of it or whatever, And so they 0:14:45.680 --> 0:14:48.920 were putting their hand out looking for money. Well, Baldy 0:14:48.960 --> 0:14:53.440 Blair and his two mates did a runner and Baldi 0:14:53.480 --> 0:14:57.440 Blair said to Patricia, the beautiful jewel thief wife and 0:14:58.160 --> 0:15:02.760 little Larry on the road, let's go, and they lit out. 0:15:02.880 --> 0:15:05.920 They first of all dropped Larry's little sister. By this 0:15:05.960 --> 0:15:09.560 stage Larry had a baby sister called Kelly. They dropped 0:15:09.640 --> 0:15:12.640 Kelly with some friends and they had a labrador dog 0:15:12.800 --> 0:15:16.080 which they took around and dropped off at Jack Sparrow's house. 0:15:16.120 --> 0:15:19.000 Would you believe in Sydney in those days there was 0:15:19.040 --> 0:15:23.520 a colorful racing identity called Jack Sparrow, and Jack Sparrow 0:15:23.600 --> 0:15:26.280 not the one in Pirates of the Caribbean. This is 0:15:26.320 --> 0:15:29.040 the real Jack Sparrow, who did have a bit of 0:15:29.040 --> 0:15:32.160 pirate in him. But that's where the labrador was dropped 0:15:32.200 --> 0:15:36.160 off and the family of three, although I think they 0:15:36.200 --> 0:15:39.360 got the baby back on the way somewhere. They might 0:15:39.400 --> 0:15:42.600 have got little baby Kelly from a friend and picked 0:15:42.600 --> 0:15:45.120 her up again. So in the end they're in the 0:15:45.200 --> 0:15:49.359 Valiant and they're heading it to the outback. So Baldy Patricia, 0:15:49.800 --> 0:15:53.440 Larry who's about eleven by this ten or eleven, and 0:15:53.480 --> 0:15:56.800 his little baby sister Kelly, and they go to Cooper Peedy, 0:15:57.040 --> 0:16:00.840 Cooper Petty, the Opel Fields right out in the boondocks 0:16:01.480 --> 0:16:04.920 roughly where New South Wales hits the South Australian border 0:16:04.920 --> 0:16:07.560 and all that sort of stuff right out with all 0:16:07.560 --> 0:16:09.400 the states meet in the corner country. I think it's 0:16:09.440 --> 0:16:13.680 out there somewhere, and there is a lot of interesting 0:16:13.720 --> 0:16:16.320 people at Kuoper Petty. In those days. I think people 0:16:16.400 --> 0:16:19.720 who were on the run from other places would go 0:16:19.760 --> 0:16:23.120 to Kuber Peaty and there were a lot of underground 0:16:23.120 --> 0:16:26.880 houses there, you know, literally houses dug into the earth 0:16:27.560 --> 0:16:30.720 because people have been mining there for decades. And they 0:16:30.800 --> 0:16:33.680 hid out at kuber Peaty and they should have stayed 0:16:33.680 --> 0:16:37.120 there for longer, and then they should have gone somewhere 0:16:37.120 --> 0:16:40.240 else and stayed there longer and let everything cool right off. 0:16:40.800 --> 0:16:44.880 But crooks are risk takers. They want to spend their money, 0:16:44.880 --> 0:16:46.640 They want a big note. They don't want to be 0:16:46.640 --> 0:16:50.240 away from the big centers of Sydney and Melbourne because 0:16:50.280 --> 0:16:52.960 that's you know, that's the center of the world to them. 0:16:53.920 --> 0:16:58.000 And foolishly Baldy Blairs every week going back and they 0:16:58.000 --> 0:17:04.080 went back to Sydney. Long story short. Baldy Blair, cocky, confident, 0:17:04.240 --> 0:17:07.320 tough little man that he was. He went back to 0:17:07.400 --> 0:17:12.120 the Oceanic Hotel to where his drinking mates were and 0:17:12.320 --> 0:17:15.800 you know, shouted everybody a drink and we're all happy 0:17:15.800 --> 0:17:18.960 families again. And he thinks that all the heaters died 0:17:19.040 --> 0:17:21.920 down and no one's going to clip him for money. 0:17:22.760 --> 0:17:24.760 And he was wrong, because you know what they did. 0:17:25.320 --> 0:17:27.480 They said, oh, Bali, Baldie mate, come over and look 0:17:27.520 --> 0:17:29.840 in this van. You know, Harry's got a van here 0:17:29.880 --> 0:17:33.240 full of hot gear, hot this or hot that, stolen stuff. 0:17:33.640 --> 0:17:35.679 And of course this is what these guys used to do. 0:17:35.800 --> 0:17:38.840 We'k in week out they'd be buying and selling hot gear. 0:17:39.440 --> 0:17:41.280 And then went over to the van and they opened 0:17:41.359 --> 0:17:42.800 up the door for him to look at the hot 0:17:42.840 --> 0:17:44.520 gear and then they grabbed him and throw him in it, 0:17:45.640 --> 0:17:49.040 and somebody put a gun in his ear and they 0:17:49.080 --> 0:17:52.959 took him away. And we can't really say where, but 0:17:53.000 --> 0:17:55.800 it will have been a warehouse or an empty premises 0:17:55.840 --> 0:18:00.200 of factory, probably around the Botany area out near the 0:18:00.280 --> 0:18:05.800 airport Kingsford Smith Airport, Sydney. And there it is said 0:18:06.040 --> 0:18:09.760 that what became known as the toe Cutter Gang got 0:18:09.760 --> 0:18:14.640 its name because they tortured Baldy Blair with bolt cutters 0:18:15.640 --> 0:18:18.520 and with a blow torch to get him to reveal 0:18:19.440 --> 0:18:22.040 where his cash was where the cash robbery cash was. 0:18:22.920 --> 0:18:26.439 The name the toe Cutter Gang was coined over that 0:18:27.240 --> 0:18:30.960 specific incident and the fact that they also did it 0:18:31.000 --> 0:18:34.879 to his two mates to is too. Mates in the robbery, 0:18:34.920 --> 0:18:38.840 that is Steve Nitti's and Alan Jones, who actually survived 0:18:38.840 --> 0:18:41.600 and got away. They probably were able to give some 0:18:41.680 --> 0:18:45.600 information or some money to the toe Cutters, but for 0:18:45.720 --> 0:18:50.119 whatever reason, that didn't happen with Baldi Blair. Perhaps he 0:18:50.200 --> 0:18:53.680 was too tough for his own good and wouldn't divulge, 0:18:53.920 --> 0:18:57.119 or perhaps they injured him too seriously before he divulged. 0:18:57.680 --> 0:18:59.439 But the long and the short of it is that 0:18:59.480 --> 0:19:03.680 he died of his injuries or they killed him. And 0:19:04.840 --> 0:19:11.320 the story that Larry, as an adult twenty thirty years later, 0:19:11.440 --> 0:19:14.960 was able to put together was that his body was 0:19:15.000 --> 0:19:17.880 probably dissolved in a vat of acid and then they 0:19:17.920 --> 0:19:22.560 buried his remains underneath the extension to the I think 0:19:22.640 --> 0:19:26.399 north South runway of the airport was then being built 0:19:26.400 --> 0:19:29.280 in nineteen seventy, So they took whatever was left of 0:19:29.320 --> 0:19:32.439 poor old Baldi and they tipped it out in a 0:19:32.520 --> 0:19:37.000 trench or whatever where they were building the north South runway, 0:19:37.000 --> 0:19:40.280 and that was the end of Baldy Blair, So that 0:19:40.400 --> 0:19:45.639 left he very shattered, Patricia, his wife, and a very 0:19:45.840 --> 0:19:52.880 anxious son, Larry, who realized, of course that Baldy, who 0:19:53.000 --> 0:19:56.120 you know, Larry says, was a bully and a rogue 0:19:56.119 --> 0:19:59.240 and a womanizer, and you know, a lot of bad things. 0:19:59.320 --> 0:20:04.439 He wasn't of father of the year, but he was 0:20:04.520 --> 0:20:07.680 the only father this kid had, and in his own way, 0:20:08.200 --> 0:20:14.160 he sort of loved him. And they were scared that 0:20:14.240 --> 0:20:17.520 the bad guys would come for them, and I think 0:20:17.800 --> 0:20:20.960 they were right to be scared. Patricia had a very 0:20:21.000 --> 0:20:27.439 acute sense of self preservation, and she was intuitive and 0:20:27.600 --> 0:20:31.320 intelligent when she could read the play very well, and 0:20:31.520 --> 0:20:34.280 she said, right, we're going. As soon as she heard 0:20:34.320 --> 0:20:38.280 that Bully had disappeared, she grabs her son, She drops 0:20:38.960 --> 0:20:42.119 a daughter, the little girl, off at other friends, and 0:20:42.160 --> 0:20:44.480 they go and get on an aeroplane to fly to Melbourne. 0:20:44.720 --> 0:20:49.359 And they're at the airport at Sydney in an ansett plane. 0:20:50.280 --> 0:20:53.280 It taxies out from the terminal to get to the 0:20:53.840 --> 0:20:58.479 actual strip to take off, and Patricia looks over her 0:20:58.480 --> 0:21:03.520 shoulder and sees a red guy called Billy Maloney. Billy 0:21:03.560 --> 0:21:06.240 Maloney was one of the guys from the Oceanic Hotel 0:21:06.440 --> 0:21:11.000 who used to be a drinking partner, drinking buddy of ballies. 0:21:11.400 --> 0:21:13.800 And she knows that Billy Maloney is one of the 0:21:13.880 --> 0:21:19.200 treacherous bastards who has been one of the toe cutters. 0:21:19.800 --> 0:21:23.200 And she thinks, and she's probably right, that he's following 0:21:23.240 --> 0:21:26.359 them to Melbourne because she's trying to go into smoke, 0:21:26.520 --> 0:21:29.919 she's trying to vanish, and there's this guy four seats 0:21:29.960 --> 0:21:35.560 behind them. She bolts straight down to the cockpit. She 0:21:35.640 --> 0:21:38.119 bangs on the cockpit door. She gets the captain of 0:21:38.160 --> 0:21:41.720 the plane to stop the plane and speak to her. 0:21:42.240 --> 0:21:48.280 And because of her vehemence, her articulate nature, possibly because 0:21:48.320 --> 0:21:51.639 of her beauty, because that doesn't do any harm, she 0:21:51.840 --> 0:21:56.720 was able to persuade the captain that the flight should 0:21:56.720 --> 0:22:00.240 not take off until he'd called the police radio for 0:22:00.280 --> 0:22:04.400 the police to come. That they wheeled the steps back 0:22:04.440 --> 0:22:06.840 out to the plane, opened the door of the plane 0:22:07.400 --> 0:22:11.520 and escorted she and her son off the plane, leaving 0:22:11.560 --> 0:22:15.200 the red haired passenger on it. So this is how 0:22:15.240 --> 0:22:18.520 she avoided the bad guy on the plane following her 0:22:18.600 --> 0:22:22.399 to Melbourne. The police come and escort them off the plane. 0:22:22.680 --> 0:22:26.200 The plane takes off and goes to Melbourne. Meanwhile, they're 0:22:26.200 --> 0:22:28.960 in Sydney with the police and the police said, what 0:22:29.000 --> 0:22:31.200 are we going to do with you? Well, you've got 0:22:31.200 --> 0:22:33.800 to take her somewhere safe. So the police dropped them 0:22:33.800 --> 0:22:37.600 off at a dodgy old motel which I think was 0:22:37.680 --> 0:22:40.520 in Couljiebay Road, but it doesn't really matter. It's a 0:22:40.560 --> 0:22:45.760 dodgy old motel on the edge of Sydney somewhere. And 0:22:47.160 --> 0:22:50.680 that night he can remember this is Larry telling this 0:22:50.800 --> 0:22:53.880 story because Larry's now written a book, which is why 0:22:54.080 --> 0:22:58.119 we're interested. Larry tells the story that that night he 0:22:58.160 --> 0:23:01.040 and his mother are in this motel room and they're 0:23:01.160 --> 0:23:05.280 very awake, and they're very nervous, and they fold down 0:23:05.320 --> 0:23:07.679 this dodgy old joint had these fold down beds that 0:23:07.720 --> 0:23:11.560 were really squeaky and horrible, and they fold it down 0:23:11.560 --> 0:23:14.879 and they get on the bed and they're lying there 0:23:14.920 --> 0:23:17.960 wondering what's going to happen next, and how they're going 0:23:18.040 --> 0:23:21.800 to get to Melbourne and all that, when they hear something. 0:23:22.160 --> 0:23:26.560 They hear in the corridor one of the little trolleys 0:23:26.560 --> 0:23:28.479 that the maids used to bring the sheets and the 0:23:28.520 --> 0:23:31.320 meals and the whatever, all the stuff around the shampoo. 0:23:31.800 --> 0:23:34.760 They hear this squeaking wheels of this trolley. They'd squeak 0:23:34.800 --> 0:23:38.040 along and then stop. Then they'd hear a voice, a 0:23:38.119 --> 0:23:40.919 knock on the door, and then a voice. Then it'd 0:23:40.960 --> 0:23:43.040 move on to the next door, and so on. And 0:23:43.600 --> 0:23:47.639 Patricia realizes it's after midnight and this will not be 0:23:47.680 --> 0:23:51.160 a legitimate trolley run. It's too late, she said, quick 0:23:51.520 --> 0:23:54.159 she grabs the boy, Larry. She shoves him out the window. 0:23:54.200 --> 0:23:57.600 They're up a couple of flights, a couple of stories. 0:23:58.560 --> 0:24:01.280 Climb down, climb down. They both get out the window 0:24:01.440 --> 0:24:06.679 and they climb down the downpipe. They're guttering the downpipe 0:24:06.920 --> 0:24:10.240 and they're hoping that the rusty old downpipe won't break. 0:24:10.440 --> 0:24:13.320 And they get to the ground. They jump over the 0:24:13.359 --> 0:24:17.720 fence next door into the next door block. And the 0:24:17.760 --> 0:24:20.720 next door block is I think it was undeveloped, might 0:24:20.720 --> 0:24:23.080 have been a building site or something, and it had 0:24:23.119 --> 0:24:27.960 some scrub on it and some lantana bushes, which is rubbishy, 0:24:28.240 --> 0:24:31.639 noxious weed. And they hide in the lantana bush. And 0:24:31.720 --> 0:24:33.720 as soon as they get over that fence. Now a 0:24:33.760 --> 0:24:37.600 minute after vacating the room via the window, they hear 0:24:37.640 --> 0:24:41.520 this crash from upstairs, whoever it was, having knocked on 0:24:41.560 --> 0:24:44.679 their door and no answer, has kicked their door in, 0:24:44.880 --> 0:24:48.600 broken their door in, and they realized they'd missed. They'd 0:24:48.640 --> 0:24:52.080 got away by that much, but they're terrified, so they 0:24:52.160 --> 0:24:56.080 hide all night in the Lantana bushes, not moving a 0:24:56.160 --> 0:25:01.640 muscle in case somebody's looking for them. Dawn just starts 0:25:01.680 --> 0:25:06.600 to break. At whatever five point thirty six. Dawn starts 0:25:06.640 --> 0:25:09.200