Shark Arm case

The Shark Arm case refers to a series of incidents that began in Sydney, Australia on 25 April 1935 when a human arm was regurgitated by a captive 3.5-metre tiger shark, subsequently leading to a murder investigation.

The tiger shark had been caught 3 kilometres from the beach suburb of Coogee in mid-April and transferred to the Coogee Aquarium Baths, where it was put on public display. Within a week the fish became ill and vomited in front of a small crowd, leaving the left forearm of a man bearing a distinctive tattoo floating in the pool. Before it was captured, the tiger shark had devoured a smaller shark. It was this smaller shark that had originally swallowed the human arm.

Fingerprints lifted from the hand identified the arm as that of former boxer and small-time criminal James (Jim) Smith, (born England, 1890), who had been missing since 7 April 1935. Smith's arm and tattoo were also positively identified by his wife Gladys and his brother Edward Smith. Jim Smith led a high-risk lifestyle, as he was also a police informer. Examination revealed that the limb had been severed with a knife, which led to a murder investigation. Three days later, the aquarium owners killed the shark and gutted it, hampering the initial police investigation.

Early inquiries correctly led police to a Sydney businessman named Reginald William Lloyd Holmes (1892-1935). Holmes was a fraudster and smuggler who also ran a successful family boat-building business at Lavender Bay, New South Wales. Holmes had employed Smith several times to work insurance scams, including one in 1934 in which an over-insured pleasure cruiser named Pathfinder was sunk near Terrigal, New South Wales. Shortly afterward, the pair began a racket with Patrick Francis Brady (1889-1965), a convicted forger and ex-serviceman. With specimen signatures from Holmes' friends and clients provided by the boat-builder, Brady would forge cheques for small amounts against their bank accounts that he and Smith would then cash. Police were later able to establish that Jim Smith was blackmailing the wealthy Reginald Holmes.

Jim Smith was last seen drinking and playing cards with Patrick Brady at the Cecil Hotel in the southern Sydney suburb of Cronulla on 7 April 1935 after telling his wife he was going fishing. Patrick Brady had rented a small cottage in Taloombi Street, Cronulla at the time Jim Smith went missing. Police alleged that Smith was murdered at this cottage.

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