Harry "Pete" Pierpont was a Prohibition era gangster, convicted murderer and bank robber. He was a friend and mentor to John Dillinger.
Joseph Bolitho Johns, better known as Moondyne Joe, was an English convict and Western Australia's best-known bushranger. Born into poor and relatively difficult circumstances, he became something of a petty criminal robber with a strong sense of self-determination. He is remembered as a person who had escaped multiple times from prison.
Fremantle Prison, sometimes referred to as Fremantle Gaol or Fremantle Jail, is a former Australian prison and World Heritage Site in Fremantle, Western Australia. The site includes the prison cellblocks, gatehouse, perimeter walls, cottages, and tunnels. It was initially used for convicts transported from Britain, but was transferred to the colonial government in 1886 for use for locally-sentenced prisoners. Royal Commissions were held in 1898 and 1911, and instigated some reform to the prison system, but significant changes did not begin until the 1960s. The government department in charge of the prison underwent several reorganisations in the 1970s and 1980s, but the culture of Fremantle Prison was resistant to change. Growing prisoner discontent culminated in a 1988 riot with guards taken hostage, and a fire that caused $1.8 million worth of damage. The prison closed in 1991, replaced by the new maximum-security Casuarina Prison.
Woodford Correctional Centre is an Australian prison facility located on Neurum Road, Woodford, City of Moreton Bay, Queensland, Australia, approximately 80 kilometres north from Brisbane and 30 kilometres from Caboolture.
This is a timeline of major crimes in Australia.
The Postcard Bandit is a 2003 Australian television film directed by Tony Tilse, loosely based on the life of a convicted bank robber Brenden James Abbott. The plot is based on the biographical book No Fixed Address by newspaperman Derek Pedley, who also assisted screenwriter Peter Gawler.
The Fremantle Prison riot was a prison riot that occurred on 4 January 1988 at Fremantle Prison, in Western Australia. The riot was organised as a diversion for an escape that was to take place. Prisoners created a fire as part of the diversion, and temperatures inside the cells were recorded at 52.2 °C (126 °F). 3 division and 4 division were taken over by a total of seventy prisoners, and 5 officers were taken hostage. The fire caused $1.8 million in damage and unintentionally prevented the planned escape.
Karl John Langdon is a sports commentator and radio personality in Western Australia and a former Australian rules footballer with the Subiaco Football Club and the West Coast Eagles.
Charles Omer Makley, also known as Charles McGray and Fat Charles, was an American criminal and bank robber active in the early 20th century, most notably as a criminal associate of John Dillinger.
The Santa Claus Bank Robbery occurred on December 23, 1927, in the Central Texas town of Cisco. Marshall Ratliff, dressed as Santa Claus, along with Henry Helms and Robert Hill, all ex-cons, and Louis Davis, a relative of Helms, held up the First National Bank in Cisco. The robbery is one of Texas' most infamous crimes, having invoked the largest manhunt ever seen in the state. Boyce House, editor of the Ranger Times, a newspaper in the county at the time, wrote that this was "the most spectacular crime in the history of the Southwest ... surpassing any in which Billy the Kid or the James boys had ever figured."
David John Birnie and Catherine Margaret Birnie were an Australian couple from Perth who murdered four women at their home in 1986, also attempting to murder a fifth. These crimes were referred to in the press as the Moorhouse murders, after the Birnies' address at 3 Moorhouse Street in Willagee, a suburb of Perth.
Russell Lee "Boobie" Clark was an American thief, bank robber and prison escapee. He is best known as the "good natured" member of the John Dillinger gang and participated in armed holdups with them in a three-month crime spree across the Midwestern United States from October 1933 until his capture in January 1934.
James Franklin "Frank" Sawyer was an American Depression-era bank robber and prison escapee. An associate of Jim Clark, Ed Davis and other fellow Oklahoma bandits, he was a participant in countless bank robberies throughout Kansas and Oklahoma between 1917 and 1933. He was wrongfully imprisoned for a 1932 bank robbery in Fort Scott, Kansas and spent almost 40 years in prison before he was pardoned by Governor Robert Docking in 1969.
Frederick Grant Dunn (1905–1959) was an American criminal, burglar and bank robber whose career spanned over four decades from 1919 until his mysterious death in 1959. He led a small gang during the 1940s and 1950s, Dunn becoming referred to by the press as "the modern John Dillinger", and whose activities eventually resulted in his being listed on the FBI's Ten Most Wanted in 1958.
Frank Pearson was an Australian bushranger, operating under the pseudonym Captain Starlight.
The Gardiner–Hall Gang was an informal group of bushrangers who roamed the central west of the Colony of New South Wales, Australia in the 1860s. Named after leaders Frank Gardiner and Ben Hall, the gang was involved in numerous shootouts and robberies, including Australia's largest ever gold robbery, at Eugowra Rocks. The gang had its origins in 1861; its demise came with the execution of John Dunn in 1866.
Staff and prisoners of Fremantle Prison occupied the former prison on The Terrace, Fremantle, in Western Australia, between 1855 and 1991. Fremantle Prison was administered by a comptroller general, sheriff, or director, responsible for the entire convict or prison system, and a superintendent in charge of the prison itself. Prison officers, known as warders in the 19th century, guarded against escapes, enforced discipline, oversaw prisoner work, and instructed inmates in trades. Officers worked under stringent conditions until they achieved representation through the Western Australian Prison Officers Union. Convicts were initially of good character, as potential future colonists, but eventually less desirable convicts were sent, until the end of transportation in 1868. As a locally run prison, Fremantle's population was generally short-sentenced white prisoners in the 1890s, with very few Aboriginal prisoners; however, by the late 20th century, most prisoners were serving longer sentences, a higher proportion of them were violent, and Aboriginal people were over-represented.
Jeffrey Shuman is an American-French bank robber, dubbed "The Vaulter", considered to be one of Canada's most prolific bank robbers. In 1994, he pleaded guilty to robbing 14 banks in the United States, receiving a 12-year sentence, but was released in 2004, and fled the country while on parole. He then robbed 21 banks in Canada, before fleeing to France on his French passport. In 2016, he was extradited to Canada, and in 2017, was sentenced to 15 years in prison and ordered to pay back nearly $450,000 in restitution after pleading guilty to seven counts of robbery using a firearm.
Robert David Bennett was an Australian criminal and sex offender. He was convicted of the rape of a young girl in Western Australia in 1911 and, despite receiving a life sentence for the crime, he was released in June 1914 under controversial circumstances. Bennett and another criminal named Angus Murray committed a series of offences in New South Wales and Victoria, culminating in an armed bank robbery in suburban Melbourne in 1917, for which each were sentenced to fifteen years in prison. Soon after his release from prison Bennett was again convicted of the sexual assault of a young girl, a capital offence for which he received a death sentence. He was executed at Pentridge Prison in September 1932. Bennett was the first of eleven people to be hanged at Pentridge Prison after the closure of Melbourne Gaol in 1924, and the last person to be executed in Australia for a crime other than murder.
