Crime of Hard Knocks

Faraday and Wooreen: Australian School Kidnappings

Australian man kidnaps, takes hostage 22 victims in two separate incidents.

On a fateful day in a rural town in Australia, an event took place which proved that even rural towns or schools there, are not exempt from crime kicking its door down. A second, similar incident following this, also demonstrated that sometimes, even criminals can sometimes fail to learn their lessons the first time around.

1) The Faraday school incident

Regarding the first incident, which took place on October 6, 1972, two plasterers by the name of Edwin John Eastwood, and his accomplice, Robert Clyde Boland, entered a one-teacher school in the rural town of Faraday, Victoria, Australia, at about 3 p.m. Armed with a sawed-off shotgun, they forced its 20-year old female teacher, Mary Gibbs, and six of her students: Robyn Howarth, 11, her sisters, Jillian, 8, and Denise, 5, Lynda Conn, 9, her sister, Helen, 6, and Christine Ellery, 10, into a red delivery van. They also left a note at the school threatening to kill all of the hostages unless a ransom of $1,000,000, to be paid in cash, was met, then drove away with the victims into a remote area in the bush.

The note read as follows:

RANSOM WILL BE ONE MILLION 500,000 — $ 20 NOTES (3 SUITCASES) 500,000 — $10 NOTES (6 SUITCASES) ALL CURRENCY MUST HAVE BEEN IN CIRCULATION AT…