Faraday School kidnapping

The Faraday School kidnapping occurred on 6 October 1972 at a one-teacher school in the rural town of Faraday in Victoria, Australia, where two plasterers, Edwin John Eastwood and Robert Clyde Boland, kidnapped six female pupils and their teacher for a $1,000,000 ransom.

The government claimed it would pay the ransom. The victims escaped and the criminals were captured, tried and convicted.

Eastwood later escaped, and later kidnapped a teacher and nine pupils. He was again captured, convicted and sentenced. While in prison Eastwood strangled convicted rapist Glen Davies in what was ruled self-defense. He was eventually released having served his sentence.

Eastwood and Boland entered the school armed with a sawn-off shotgun at about 3:00pm, and forced the teacher, 20-year-old Mary Gibbs, and her six pupils (girls aged between 5 and 10) into a red delivery van, leaving a note at the school threatening to kill all of the hostages unless a $1,000,000 cash ransom was paid. They were driven off into a remote area in the bush.

That evening, the Premier of Victoria, Dick Hamer, announced that the State Government was prepared to pay the ransom. The Victorian Education Minister and future Premier, Lindsay Thompson, was driven to the scene by Assistant Commissioner W.D.(Bill) Crowley masquerading as the minister’s driver and armed with a trousered derringer pistol. Future Chief Commissioner S.I. (Mick) Miller was concealed under a blanket in the rear of the car with a high-powered rifle. Thompson waited to personally deliver the ransom, but it was never collected. In the early hours of the next morning, the kidnappers told Gibbs they were going to collect the ransom and left her and the pupils.

When they were gone, Gibbs managed to kick the door panel out with her heavy, platform-heeled leather boots and escape with the children in the dark, finding help a few kilometres away. Eastwood and Boland were captured by heavily armed Victoria Police officers after an extensive manhunt.

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Wikipedia