The Parramatta Jail inmate who tried to break BACK IN to retrieve songs he left in pickle bottle buried in prison garden
PARRAMATTA Jail, the historic penitentiary NSW is considering re-opening, is the backdrop for many infamous break-OUT stories, but it was also the site of something more bizarre - an attempted break-IN.
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LONG before Johnny Cash sang those immortal words: “I hear the train a comin’ ... It’s rolling round the bend ...” there was another prison songwriter with dreams of fame and fortune.
Without doubt his songs didn’t contain the immortal lines of Cash’s Folsom Prison Blues but they were so valuable to the man who penned them, he planned to BREAK IN to Parramatta Jail to retrieve them.
While serving a four-year sentence at the historic Parramatta Jail in the early 1900s, Frederick Jacob Anthes took up the unlikely hobby of song writing and put pen to paper on a great number of what he convinced himself would be number one hits in the outside world.
To make sure none of his fellow inmates got their hands on his work, Anthes hid the songs inside a pickle bottle and buried them in the prison garden. (Editor’s note: This is not where the term “unearthing new talent came from”).
But when the time came for his release, poor Fred didn’t have the chance to retrieve the pickle bottle and the words that were set to fill his wallet (so he thought) were trapped on the inside as he walked out through the prison gates.
A little more than a month after he was granted freedom for his latest stint behind bars in 1922, Anthes was caught stalking the famous sand stone walls of the prison and questioned by police.
He gave up his elaborate plan to climb back into the prison yard, retrieve his glass jar and hot tail it out again. He was charged with stealing a ladder to use in the attempt.
The officer who found Anthes took him into the grounds and he was able to dig up the jar and the manuscript inside, but it didn’t stop him from getting another 12 months in the slammer.
Anthes claimed he’d signed a contract for the songs worth 60,000 pounds and he’d even promised another man 500 quid from the royalties if he could break into the jail in retrieve the lyrics.
A habitual criminal, he was hauled before the court repeatedly for various offences, from assaulting an eight-year-old girl to stealing jewellery from his former boss’s house after he was fired.
During sentencing for the assault in 1913, Anthes pleaded with the judge for a lenient sentence and requested he be sent to London to live with family members, a move the judge refused.
“I would point out that years ago this country was the receptacle of criminals from the old country. The residents here protested, and the system of transportation was stopped,” the judge told Anthes.
“Therefore, this country is the last to transport her criminals to other countries. We have to bear our own burdens, I am sorry to say.”
Parramatta Jail is the historic penitentiary the NSW government is considering reopening to cope with prison overcrowding.
Opened on its current site in 1842, Parramatta Jail has been home to some of the country’s most notorious killers, rapists and gangsters.
On the weekend, it was announced more than 1000 beds, including a number of ‘pop-up’ cells, would be created by the end of next year to help ease the congestion and Prisons Minister David Elliott last week said opening Parramatta was still under ‘active consideration’.
The jail was home to some of the worst offenders in NSW history with a who’s who of violent crime spending time behind bars there.
Horrific child killer John Lewthwaite, who murdered five-year-old Nicole Hanns in 1974 after she disturbed him while he was attempting to abduct and murder her nine-year-old brother, spent time at Parramatta, together with one of the state’s most depraved killers Leonard Keith Lawson.
Lawson kidnapped five models and took them to secluded bushland in Sydney’s north where he raped two of the young women and abused the other three — all at knifepoint.
He was captured and originally sentenced to life behind bars but that sentence was commuted and he was granted parole in 1961. Just days later he stabbed 16-year-old Jane Bower to death and the following day he stormed the chapel of Sydney Church of England Girls’ Grammar School where he took a number of students hostage. Wendy Sue Luscombe, 15, was killed during the siege and Lawson was captured and handed a life sentence.
Being behind the bars of Parramatta Jail didn’t stop Lawson destroying lives.
When a group of female dancers visited the jail in December 1972, the killer jumped up on stage and held a knife to the throat of Sharon Hamilton.
While Ms Hamilton escaped with her life that night, she was traumatised by the experience and took her own life several years later.
Parramatta Jail almost became the site of one of the most daring escapes in Australian history and would have almost certainly been successful if it wasn’t for a single phone call made by one of Anita Cobby’s eventual vicious killers, Michael Murphy, in 1986.
Double murderer Tony Lanigan spent two years digging a massive tunnel, employing a roster of inmates to dig through the night after lights out.
He employed the crew of killers, rapists and a paedophile to help in his bold plan to dig under the jail and out into the adjoining Parramatta Linen Service.
The prisoners would wait until the guards were out of sight and take shifts in digging through the tunnel, which had its opening under a cupboard in Lanigan’s cell.
When it was uncovered, officers found an elaborate setup with electricity and lights throughout the tunnel.
With only a day left of digging to go before they would break through to the outside world, Murphy made a call to his grandmother and told her he would ‘see you tomorrow.’
Confused about an unlikely release date she called the prison to confirm a time, sparking a search by guards who discovered the tunnel.
Lanigan, a double murderer, wasn’t able to pull off his escape this time but he eventually broke free from Long Bay Jail in 1995 and has never been captured.
Others to have spent time at Parramatta include jockey-turned-gunslinger James Edward Smith, and notorious killer and drug dealer Arthur Stanley ‘Neddy’ Smith.
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