Short Stuff: Shark Arm Murders

**Josh** (0:04)
Hey, and welcome to The Short Stuff. I'm Josh, and there's Chuck, and Jerry's here sitting in for Dave, so that's a short stuff. That's a bingo.

**Chuck** (0:12)
That's right, and we're talking about the shark arm murder, and we need to thank the Dictionary of Sydney, the Sydney Crime Museum, Snopes, and Atlas Obscura.

**Josh** (0:24)
Wow, you really did that up, man.

**Chuck** (0:26)
I love that Atlas Obscura site. That's a great, great website.

**Josh** (0:29)
Yeah, same here. Same with Snopes, too. They're good, too.

**Chuck** (0:32)
Yeah. And hey, hats off to the Sydney Crime Museum while we're at it.

**Josh** (0:36)
Yeah, and who could leave out the Dictionary of Sydney?

**Chuck** (0:40)
Yes, we're talking about Sydney, because that's where the shark arm murders took place.
Infamous crime in Sydney, Australia's history in 1935, and this is how it starts. A fisherman was fishing off of Coogee Beach and caught a little small shark, and then right after that, a larger tiger shark swallowed that smaller shark, and so all of a sudden, he has two sharks. Because this tiger shark was so big, he was like, hey, this thing, maybe I should take this in to the aquarium baths there in Coogee, because it'll be a nice attraction for people to come see it. It was still alive, and people can come see this dreadful shark swimming around, because sharks had been killing people around the area lately, so he thought it was a pretty good idea.

**Josh** (1:29)
Yeah, just over the course of a couple of weeks, three different men were killed by sharks on New South Wales beaches, so that was a big deal to catch this shark that may have been the one, or at least one of the ones. And he was right, there were a lot of people that showed up to see this giant shark. I mean, 12 feet is pretty long, right?

**Chuck** (1:50)
It's a big shark.

**Josh** (1:51)
And those tiger sharks, they're BAs, too. At any rate, the shark was giving the people what they wanted to see, you know, like he would swim around along the window and just flip the people off. He had a real bad attitude, exactly what they wanted to see. And he was acting pretty normally. And then on April 25th, which was Anzac Day in Australia, which is I taking it as similar to our Memorial Day here in the United States.
The shark started acting really weird. Like he started getting lethargic and sluggish, like a wet sponge. He seemed disoriented. And then all of a sudden, everything came to a head, essentially.

**Chuck** (2:35)
Yeah, the shark goes bleh, bleh, that's usually your part, and pukes up a human arm. So everyone freaked out.
They assumed initially, of course, like this is probably an arm of another bathyr that had bad timing and bad luck. But when they did the medical examination, they were like, this was no tiger shark. No, sorry, I just watched Jaws with Ruby, so I had to work a Jaws quote in there.

**Josh** (3:03)
Sure. What did Ruby think of it?

**Chuck** (3:05)
She liked it.

**Josh** (3:06)
How could you not?

**Chuck** (3:07)
I was delighted. She didn't love it, but she liked it. Like she hung in there through the whole thing.

**Josh** (3:12)
Was that a happy birthday treat for her to watch Jaws?

**Chuck** (3:15)
That's right. Happy birthday to both of you in real time.

**Josh** (3:17)
Thank you. Happy birthday to Ruby.

**Chuck** (3:19)
We did all our private birthday stuff, and Ruby sent you a video, and you sent her one, which is very sweet.

**Josh** (3:23)
That was very sweet.

**Chuck** (3:24)
I imagine we'll do that for the rest of our lives.

**Josh** (3:26)
Yeah.

**Chuck** (3:27)
So at any rate, back to the autopsy.
Not some half-ass shark autopsy, but an autopsy on this arm. They were like, this was not a shark biting this arm off. Like this thing was cut off with something sharp. It wasn't shark teeth, and it was not surgery either. So I think we have a murder on our hands. And again, with jaws, they were like, whatever that shark ate is bound to still be in there, and this arm was in there.
Fairly well preserved. Like you could see a tattoo of a couple of boxers about to go at it. They put it out in the newspaper, and a guy named Edwin Smith was like, I think that might be my brother's arm. He had this tattoo, and he's been gone missing for a few weeks. And the cops were like, all right, they were able to get fingerprints. And they're like, yep, bing bing, we have a winner. That is Jim Smith's arm.