James Ryan O'Neill
Encyclopedia
James Ryan O'Neill is an Australia
n convicted murderer, currently serving a life sentence in Tasmania for a murder he committed in February 1975.
Allegations have been made that O'Neill also murdered a number of other children in several Australian states from the mid 1960s whilst he was still a teenager through to the murder that he was imprisoned for in 1975. He is currently Tasmania's longest serving prisoner for a single offence.
He was the subject of a documentary The Fishermen which was broadcast on ABC TV in October 2006.
and Caulfield Grammar
Schools and Scotch College
following which he began working in real estate. He later became a gun dealer and is known to have associated with members of Melbourne's underworld.
Between 1965 and 1968, O'Neill (as Bridgart) worked in the opal industry which required frequent travel between Melbourne and Coober Pedy in South Australia
. He then obtained work on a cattle station in the Kimberley region of Western Australia
. In 1969, a business partner was playing with a pistol and accidentally shot him in the head. The bullet, which entered his right forehead and came out of his neck, destroyed his sense of smell and taste. Bridgart went on to give many reasons for the bullet wound to various people including it being the result of serving in Vietnam
, that his mother's boyfriend had shot him and being an ASIO
spy.
In 1971 Bridgart was charged with 12 offences involving abductions and sexual assaults of four boys in Victoria. He skipped bail
and fled to Western Australia. In November 1974 he moved to Tasmania
and changed his name to James Ryan O'Neill.
. O'Neill was a suspect and after interrogation led police to the body of Ricky Smith. Although arrested for both murders he was only tried for Ricky Smith's murder following legal practice at the time. O'Neill pleaded insanity, due to his head injuries from being shot in 1969, and claimed that police had held a gun to his head to get his confession.
After deliberating for three hours, the jury found O'Neill guilty and he was jailed for life. He applied for parole in 1991 but was turned down and has not re applied. He remains Tasmania's longest serving prisoner.
and was allowed to go fishing in the Derwent River
unsupervised. The same report claimed that O'Neill had no criminal record prior to his conviction for murder. Davie thought this unlikely because Davie believed it was rare for a serial killer to start so late in life. Davie wrote to O'Neill asking for permission to interview him.
Davie interviewed him for the entire day with O'Neill claiming he had never even received so much as a parking ticket before the murders. Davie contacted Widgery and told her he didn't believe a word O'Neill had said and he thought there would be a story. Over the next four years Davie hand -recorded hundreds of hours of their conversations.
He sent those tape over to Widgery who then started asking questions in the places O'Neill mentioned. Soon Widgery located and spoke to people he had talked about on tape, people from Victoria and all the way to the Kimberley in far Western Australia. Over the next few years Widgery worked closely with the police in the Kimberley and with the National Missing Person Bureau in Canberrra and Perth. During a conversation with an owner of a large cattle station in Fitzroy Crossing, Widgery was told of a particular story where O'Neill had boasted to a fellow worker that he had "Done the Beaumont Children." The story started to gather momentum and funding. At one stage on tape from jail he mentioned a former teenage girlfriend at a beachside town she was known as Elizabeth he said she had died of a drug overdose however Widgery found her alive and very well. In fact she too talked about how O'Neill allegedly told her he had allegedly murdered a young boy on their family property. That story was the opening scene on the Documentary. Although unconfirmed Widgery has been commissioned to write a book about O'Neill and tells of disappearances she uncovered that never went to air. The book also touchs on in a bizarre twist as one of them had been investigated by Homicide Detectives as actually being an associate of O"Neills back in the early 1960s. It was nearly a case of the investigators being investigated.
The resulting documentary The Fishermen, named for O'Neills passion for fishing and Davies belief he also used the term as a euphemism
for his murders, was scheduled for broadcast on ABC television on 21 April 2005 but O'Neill applied for an injunction on the grounds it was defamatory and would hurt his chances of parole. The case, O'Neill v Australian Broadcasting Corporation
, Roar Film Pty Ltd and Davie, was heard by the Supreme Court on 22 April. The judge ruled in favour of O'Neill and granted an interlocutory injunction against the broadcast in Tasmania. As the documentary could still be viewed by 500 houses in northern Tasmania due to transmission overlap from the mainland the documentary was pulled nationwide. On 29 August 2005, the ABC's appeal against the decision was dismissed 2-1 by a full sitting of the Tasmanian Supreme Court
. The ABC appealed this decision to the High Court of Australia
in Sydney
which in a 4-2 decision quashed the Tasmanian Supreme Court ruling allowing the program to be aired in October 2006.
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
n convicted murderer, currently serving a life sentence in Tasmania for a murder he committed in February 1975.
Allegations have been made that O'Neill also murdered a number of other children in several Australian states from the mid 1960s whilst he was still a teenager through to the murder that he was imprisoned for in 1975. He is currently Tasmania's longest serving prisoner for a single offence.
He was the subject of a documentary The Fishermen which was broadcast on ABC TV in October 2006.
Life
O'Neill attended BrightonBrighton Grammar School
Brighton Grammar School is an independent, Anglican, day school for boys, located in Brighton, a south-eastern suburb of Melbourne, Victoria, Australia....
and Caulfield Grammar
Caulfield Grammar School
Caulfield Grammar School is an independent, co-educational, Anglican, day and boarding school, located in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. Founded in 1881 as a boys' school, Caulfield began admitting girls exactly one hundred years later...
Schools and Scotch College
Scotch College, Melbourne
Scotch College, Melbourne is an independent, Presbyterian, day and boarding school for boys, located in Hawthorn, an inner-eastern suburb of Melbourne, Victoria, Australia....
following which he began working in real estate. He later became a gun dealer and is known to have associated with members of Melbourne's underworld.
Between 1965 and 1968, O'Neill (as Bridgart) worked in the opal industry which required frequent travel between Melbourne and Coober Pedy in South Australia
South Australia
South Australia is a state of Australia in the southern central part of the country. It covers some of the most arid parts of the continent; with a total land area of , it is the fourth largest of Australia's six states and two territories.South Australia shares borders with all of the mainland...
. He then obtained work on a cattle station in the Kimberley region of Western Australia
Western Australia
Western Australia is a state of Australia, occupying the entire western third of the Australian continent. It is bounded by the Indian Ocean to the north and west, the Great Australian Bight and Indian Ocean to the south, the Northern Territory to the north-east and South Australia to the south-east...
. In 1969, a business partner was playing with a pistol and accidentally shot him in the head. The bullet, which entered his right forehead and came out of his neck, destroyed his sense of smell and taste. Bridgart went on to give many reasons for the bullet wound to various people including it being the result of serving in Vietnam
Vietnam War
The Vietnam War was a Cold War-era military conflict that occurred in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. This war followed the First Indochina War and was fought between North Vietnam, supported by its communist allies, and the government of...
, that his mother's boyfriend had shot him and being an ASIO
Australian Security Intelligence Organisation
The Australian Security Intelligence Organisation is Australia's national security service, which is responsible for the protection of the country and its citizens from espionage, sabotage, acts of foreign interference, politically-motivated violence, attacks on the Australian defence system, and...
spy.
In 1971 Bridgart was charged with 12 offences involving abductions and sexual assaults of four boys in Victoria. He skipped bail
Bail
Traditionally, bail is some form of property deposited or pledged to a court to persuade it to release a suspect from jail, on the understanding that the suspect will return for trial or forfeit the bail...
and fled to Western Australia. In November 1974 he moved to Tasmania
Tasmania
Tasmania is an Australian island and state. It is south of the continent, separated by Bass Strait. The state includes the island of Tasmania—the 26th largest island in the world—and the surrounding islands. The state has a population of 507,626 , of whom almost half reside in the greater Hobart...
and changed his name to James Ryan O'Neill.
Arrest
In February 1975 nine year old Ricky John Smith (also known as Ricky Kube) was abducted and O'Neill was one of many who helped in the search for the missing boy. Over the next two weeks five children were abducted in separate incidents but all managed to escape. Nine year old Bruce Colin Wilson was then abducted and his body was found in May 1975 near Risdon ValeRisdon Vale, Tasmania
Risdon Vale is an outer suburb of Hobart, capital of Tasmania, Australia.Located on the Eastern Shore of the Derwent River, and adjacent to Risdon Cove, which was the site of the first British settlement in Van Diemen's Land....
. O'Neill was a suspect and after interrogation led police to the body of Ricky Smith. Although arrested for both murders he was only tried for Ricky Smith's murder following legal practice at the time. O'Neill pleaded insanity, due to his head injuries from being shot in 1969, and claimed that police had held a gun to his head to get his confession.
After deliberating for three hours, the jury found O'Neill guilty and he was jailed for life. He applied for parole in 1991 but was turned down and has not re applied. He remains Tasmania's longest serving prisoner.
Documentary
In the 1990s, crime reporter Janine Widgery approached a retired Victorian detective, Gordon Davie, with a proposal to make a documentary on James O'Neill. In 1998 Davie read in a news report that O'Neill had been transferred in 1991 to the low security Hayes Prison FarmHayes Prison Farm
Hayes Prison Farm is a minimum security Australian prison located at Hayes, near New Norfolk, Tasmania. The prison was opened in 1937 and consisted of single wooden huts for 30 persons built by prisoners until the cell and administration buildings were replaced in 1964 with new concrete block...
and was allowed to go fishing in the Derwent River
Derwent River (Tasmania)
The Derwent is a river in Tasmania, Australia. It was named after the River Derwent, Cumbria by British Commodore John Hayes who explored it in 1793. The name is Brythonic Celtic for "valley thick with oaks"....
unsupervised. The same report claimed that O'Neill had no criminal record prior to his conviction for murder. Davie thought this unlikely because Davie believed it was rare for a serial killer to start so late in life. Davie wrote to O'Neill asking for permission to interview him.
Davie interviewed him for the entire day with O'Neill claiming he had never even received so much as a parking ticket before the murders. Davie contacted Widgery and told her he didn't believe a word O'Neill had said and he thought there would be a story. Over the next four years Davie hand -recorded hundreds of hours of their conversations.
He sent those tape over to Widgery who then started asking questions in the places O'Neill mentioned. Soon Widgery located and spoke to people he had talked about on tape, people from Victoria and all the way to the Kimberley in far Western Australia. Over the next few years Widgery worked closely with the police in the Kimberley and with the National Missing Person Bureau in Canberrra and Perth. During a conversation with an owner of a large cattle station in Fitzroy Crossing, Widgery was told of a particular story where O'Neill had boasted to a fellow worker that he had "Done the Beaumont Children." The story started to gather momentum and funding. At one stage on tape from jail he mentioned a former teenage girlfriend at a beachside town she was known as Elizabeth he said she had died of a drug overdose however Widgery found her alive and very well. In fact she too talked about how O'Neill allegedly told her he had allegedly murdered a young boy on their family property. That story was the opening scene on the Documentary. Although unconfirmed Widgery has been commissioned to write a book about O'Neill and tells of disappearances she uncovered that never went to air. The book also touchs on in a bizarre twist as one of them had been investigated by Homicide Detectives as actually being an associate of O"Neills back in the early 1960s. It was nearly a case of the investigators being investigated.
The resulting documentary The Fishermen, named for O'Neills passion for fishing and Davies belief he also used the term as a euphemism
Euphemism
A euphemism is the substitution of a mild, inoffensive, relatively uncontroversial phrase for another more frank expression that might offend or otherwise suggest something unpleasant to the audience...
for his murders, was scheduled for broadcast on ABC television on 21 April 2005 but O'Neill applied for an injunction on the grounds it was defamatory and would hurt his chances of parole. The case, O'Neill v Australian Broadcasting Corporation
Australian Broadcasting Corporation
The Australian Broadcasting Corporation, commonly referred to as "the ABC" , is Australia's national public broadcaster...
, Roar Film Pty Ltd and Davie, was heard by the Supreme Court on 22 April. The judge ruled in favour of O'Neill and granted an interlocutory injunction against the broadcast in Tasmania. As the documentary could still be viewed by 500 houses in northern Tasmania due to transmission overlap from the mainland the documentary was pulled nationwide. On 29 August 2005, the ABC's appeal against the decision was dismissed 2-1 by a full sitting of the Tasmanian Supreme Court
Supreme Court of Tasmania
The Supreme Court of Tasmania is the highest State court in the Australian State of Tasmania. In the Australian court hierarchy, the Supreme Court of Tasmania is in the middle level, and is able to both receive appeals from lower courts, and able to be appealed from.The ordinary sittings of the...
. The ABC appealed this decision to the High Court of Australia
High Court of Australia
The High Court of Australia is the supreme court in the Australian court hierarchy and the final court of appeal in Australia. It has both original and appellate jurisdiction, has the power of judicial review over laws passed by the Parliament of Australia and the parliaments of the States, and...
in Sydney
Sydney
Sydney is the most populous city in Australia and the state capital of New South Wales. Sydney is located on Australia's south-east coast of the Tasman Sea. As of June 2010, the greater metropolitan area had an approximate population of 4.6 million people...
which in a 4-2 decision quashed the Tasmanian Supreme Court ruling allowing the program to be aired in October 2006.
Chief Justice Murray GleesonMurray GleesonAnthony Murray Gleeson AC QC is a former Chief Justice of the High Court of Australia, the highest court in the Australian court hierarchy.-Biography:Gleeson was born in Wingham, New South Wales, the eldest of four children...
and Justice Susan CrennanSusan CrennanSusan Maree Crennan AC , is an Australian judge, a Justice of the High Court of Australia, the highest court in the Australian court hierarchy.-Biography:...
wrote in their joint judgement: "It is one thing for the law to impose consequences … in the case of an abuse of the right of free speech, It is another … for a court to interfere with the right of free speech by prior restraint."
Dissenting Justice Michael Kirby wrote: "Effectively, it means that any prisoner, serving a sentence for a heinous crime is fair game for anything at all that a media organisation … might choose to publish".
The Beaumont children
In the early 1970s O'Neill told a station owner in the Kimberley and several other acquaintances that he was responsible for the disappearance of the Beaumont children. Although O'Neill claims never to have visited Adelaide, the roads to travel from Victoria to Coober Pedy pass through Adelaide. The Tasmanian Police Commissioner, Richard McCreadie was also interviewed for the documentary and claimed that O'Neill was going backwards and forwards through Adelaide frequently at about that time. When asked if he had murdered the children O'Neill replied "Look, on legal advice I am not going to say where I was or when I was there". O'Neill has never spoken on the subject again. He now denies being in South Australia between 1965 and 1968. Although Davie and McCreadie don't believe he is a prime suspect both admit the possibility that O'Neill was responsible. The South Australian police however interviewed O'Neill and discounted him as a suspect.External links
- The Beaumont Children - site documenting the disappearance of the Beaumont ChildrenBeaumont children disappearanceJane Nartare Beaumont , Arnna Kathleen Beaumont , and Grant Ellis Beaumont were three siblings collectively known as The Beaumont Children who disappeared from Glenelg Beach near Adelaide, South Australia on Australia Day 1966.Their case resulted in one of the largest police investigations in...
- Remember, He's A Killer - article on The Fishermen: A Journey Into The Mind Of A Killer from The AgeThe AgeThe Age is a daily broadsheet newspaper, which has been published in Melbourne, Australia since 1854. Owned and published by Fairfax Media, The Age primarily serves Victoria, but is also available for purchase in Tasmania, the Australian Capital Territory and border regions of South Australia and...