DUPED BY A CON.WOMAN : Gladys Hardgrave (1935)
On the 24th of February 1935 The Truth Newspaper reported that Gladys Hardgrave was found guilty of astute confidence tricks, after a dramatic legal fight. This short, slim woman with tear brimmed sparkling blue eyes stood weeping as she was sentenced to 37 weeks imprisonment. As she was led to the watch house cells she murmured “to think it has come to this”.
News article from 1935
At large in Queensland for little over a month, Gladys Hardgrave posed as a gentlewoman, robbing businesses in Brisbane, Caboolture and Southport of more than £123 (roughly $10,670). She was revealed to be a clever swindler, tricking over 7 stores, banks and business people. Purchasing shoes, hotel rooms, clothing by handing them boomerang cheques and simply walking away with goods and money. Dud cheques fell like autumn leaves.
The C.I.B. Branch started their investigation, Detective acting Sergeant “Nobby” Clark, Detective Currey and Purcel were assigned to the task of catching this fraud. They found her in one of the leading hotels in Sandgate, posing as a wealthy widow, with a trained nurse to attend to her 17 month old daughter.
When arrested, Gladys was wild and uncaring, but after hours in court she began to weep with her head bowed. She told detectives her crimes were committed in order to live well and look after her baby.
Hear more about Gladys on Australia’s longest running true crime show “True Crimes” – presented by Jack Sim on 4BC Nights with Walter Williams. Thursday evenings 9.35pm on Radio 4BC.
Did she kill her husband or was she unfairly executed? (1887)
At 8 o’clock on Monday morning, 13 June 1887, Ellen Thomson was hanged at Her Majesty’s Brisbane Gaol for the murder of her husband. She is the only woman to be executed under Queensland law and on the gallows of Boggo Road Gaol.
But did she receive a fair trial, and did she deserve the ultimate punishment?
Author Vashti Farrer’s latest book reveals a tropical Queensland alive with goldrush excitement, and the hard lives of pioneering communities in Port Douglas, from English immigrants to Chinese settlers, all looking to make a better life. Into this world stepped a young widow, Ellen Thomson, who married an older farmer, Billy Thomson. After many years of working the farm on the Mossman River together, on the night of 22 October 1886, Billy Thomson was found dead with a gunshot wound to the head. What happened?
VASHTI FARRER was fascinated by the life and death of Ellen Thomson after stumbling upon her story in the museum at Port Douglas. Initially Vashti wanted to write a novel, weaving the perspectives of Ellen, her lover and her husband together, but instead has created a wonderful work of non-fiction set in the historical and social context of the times. Beyond a reasonable doubt outlines events of that fateful night, the subsequent trial and executions and gives a fascinating insight into life at the time. It also raises the question, was Ellen Thomson guilty beyond reasonable doubt?
Listen to Jack Sim and Vashti Farrer discuss the story of Ellen Thomson on Australia’s longest running true crime show “True Crimes” – presented by Jack Sim on 4BC Nights with Walter Williams. Thursday evenings 9.35pm on Radio 4BC.
You can purchase Beyond a reasonable doubt at the Boggo Road Gaol shop. Join Ghost Tours Pty Ltd on a ghost tour within the walls of Boggo Road Gaol and hear the story of Ellen Thomson.
https://bookings.ghost-tours.com.au/products.asp?Category_ID=369
REOPEN A MYSTERY: MARJORIE NORVAL (1938)
Brisbane True Crimes author Ken Blanch, will call on Attorney-General Jarrod Bleijie to reopen the case of the 1938 mysterious disappearance of a Brisbane social identity when he launches his latest book nest Sunday November 5 at Boggo Road Gaol.
In Marjorie Norval: The Girl a railway Station Swallowed, Ken Blanch recalls the sensation and the massive police and fatal air force search that resulted when Miss Norval failed to return from a trip to Bundaberg to see a sick relative. He also produces evidence that her inquest was manipulated to avoid a political scandal.
Marjorie Norval was well known in Brisbane – the social secretary to the wife of Premiere William Forgen Smith was driven to Brisbane’s central railway station on the 11th of November 1938 and was officially never seen alive or dead again.
Miss Norval told her friends and work colleagues that she was going to Bundaberg, but had told her sisters that she was going to the North Coast with secret business for the Premiere.
The coroner, Mr J Leahy, concluded that she had died at the hands of an unidentified abortionist. The inquest was held was the first held in Queensland into a case where a body had not been found.
In this book Ken Blanch reconstructs Marjorie’s movements on the night she disappeared and shows she would have exited the railway station unobserved and walked the short distance to the rooms of Brisbane’s most active medical abortionist of the time in Edward street.
Blanch also accuses a former Police Commisioner of failing to properly investigate a sighting of Marjorie Norval the next day at the Doctor’s Caloundra holiday home and uncovers the men who conspired to perjure evidence given at the inquest to prevent a political scandal.
Blanch has published reviews of homicides that he covered as a Police rounds reporter during the 1950s with Jack Sim’s Classic Crime series, but is now self-publishing as Seagle Crime Stories. His new book Marjorie Norval: The Girl a railway Station Swallowed is the first in a series of a small books about unsolved Queensland crimes and is available from Blanch’s website www.seaglecrimestories.com and the Boggo Road Gaol Shop.
BOOK LAUNCH In Marjorie Norval: The Girl a railway Station Swallowed
When: Sunday November 9, 10.30am
Where: Boggo Road Gaol Shop at Boggo Road Gaol Precinct, Annerley Road, Dutton Park
Hear who Ken Blanch believes had a hand in the disappearance of Marjorie Norval Thursday 6.11.2014 on Australia’s longest running true crime show “True Crimes” – presented by Jack Sim on 4BC Nights with Walter Williams. Thursday evenings 9.35pm on Radio 4BC.