Episode 618: Martin Bryant Part I - The Most Irritating Man in History

Summary

Episode 618: Martin Bryant Part I - The Most Irritating Man in History

Podcast: Last Podcast on the Left
Hosts: Marcus Parks, Henry Zabrowski, Ed Larson
Release Date: May 2, 2025

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Introduction to Martin Bryant and the Port Arthur Massacre

Timestamp: [04:18]

The episode kicks off with the hosts introducing Martin Bryant, labeling him "the most irritating man in history." Marcus Parks provides an overview of Bryant's heinous act during the 1996 Port Arthur massacre in Tasmania, Australia. Using an AR-15, a semiautomatic .308, and a shotgun, Bryant killed 35 people and wounded 23 within the first 15 seconds of the massacre.

Marcus Parks [05:13]: "Martin Bryant, AKA the most irritating man in history, was the perpetrator of the 1996 Port Arthur massacre on the Australian island of Tasmania..."

Historical Context: Tasmania as a Penal Colony

Timestamp: [12:46]

To understand Bryant's origins, the hosts delve into Tasmania's history as a British penal colony. They discuss how convicts were transported to Australia after the American colonies gained independence, leading to the establishment of harsh penal systems in Tasmania. The history sets the backdrop for Bryant's lineage, emphasizing the island's legacy of punishment and isolation.

Marcus Parks [14:06]: "By 1832, the island was home to over 12,000 British convicts who were used mostly for slave labor..."

Martin Bryant's Early Life and Family Background

Timestamp: [18:57]

Martin Bryant's family history is explored, highlighting his great-great-grandparents' convict past. The narrative shifts to his parents, Carlene and Maurice Bryant, detailing their troubled lives marked by tragedy and instability. Carlene's inability to bond with Martin and Maurice's struggles with alcoholism and depression are presented as critical factors influencing Martin's upbringing.

Marcus Parks [20:14]: "Carlene's life actually seems to be one of those cursed existences that we sometimes find in our research..."

Behavioral Issues and Early Signs of Violence

Timestamp: [31:29]

The discussion turns to Martin's childhood behavior. From a young age, Martin exhibited extreme aggression, throwing objects, kicking, and spitting at peers. Despite attempts by his parents to manage his behavior through harnessing and endless walks, Martin's antagonistic nature only intensified. Notable incidents, such as his attempt to play with fireworks and his violent outburst with a spear gun against a friend, underscore his escalating aggression.

Henry Zabrowski [37:40]: "He's the human equivalent of a stray dog that had wandered into Helen's yard."

Relationship with Helen Harvey

Timestamp: [60:06]

A pivotal relationship in Bryant's life is introduced—his bond with Helen Harvey, a 54-year-old heiress and hoarder. Helen provided Martin with the only semblance of companionship and acceptance he had experienced. Their relationship, though platonic, became deeply intertwined, with Helen treating Martin akin to a rambunctious child. This connection granted Martin access to significant financial resources, setting the stage for his later actions.

Marcus Parks [65:22]: "The dynamic between Helen and Martin was that Helen basically treated him like a helpful but rambunctious child."

Changes Leading Up to the Massacre

Timestamp: [72:00]

As Martin entered adulthood, his behavior became increasingly erratic. The culmination of his unresolved aggression, lack of meaningful relationships, and access to firearms through Helen's inheritance led him to amass a significant arsenal. Bryant's inability to form healthy relationships and his deep-seated resentment towards those who had wronged him, including his father's suicide and the business grievances related to the Seascape Bed and Breakfast, fueled his malevolent intentions.

Marcus Parks [73:14]: "Martin Bryant had, within 10 months, lost the only two people who had ever been able to maintain any semblance of control over his actions."

Conclusion and Teaser for Part II

Timestamp: [85:56]

The episode concludes with the hosts outlining the ominous trajectory leading to the Port Arthur massacre. They emphasize how the loss of Helen and his father left Martin unchecked, isolated, and driven to commit one of history's deadliest mass shootings. The hosts tease a follow-up episode that will delve deeper into the massacre itself, promising listeners a comprehensive and detailed account of the tragic events.

Marcus Parks [86:03]: "And as the massive mistakes led Martin Bryant to commit the Port Arthur massacre, which we will cover in full devastating detail next week."

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Notable Quotes with Timestamps

• Marcus Parks [05:13]:

  "Martin Bryant, AKA the most irritating man in history, was the perpetrator of the 1996 Port Arthur massacre on the Australian island of Tasmania..."

• Marcus Parks [14:06]:

  "By 1832, the island was home to over 12,000 British convicts who were used mostly for slave labor..."

• Marcus Parks [20:14]:

  "Carlene's life actually seems to be one of those cursed existences that we sometimes find in our research..."

• Henry Zabrowski [37:40]:

  "He's the human equivalent of a stray dog that had wandered into Helen's yard."

• Marcus Parks [65:22]:

  "The dynamic between Helen and Martin was that Helen basically treated him like a helpful but rambunctious child."

• Marcus Parks [73:14]:

  "Martin Bryant had, within 10 months, lost the only two people who had ever been able to maintain any semblance of control over his actions."

• Marcus Parks [86:03]:

  "And as the massive mistakes led Martin Bryant to commit the Port Arthur massacre, which we will cover in full devastating detail next week."

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Key Insights and Conclusions

1. Isolation and Unmanaged Aggression: Martin Bryant's upbringing was marred by isolation, lack of effective parenting, and unmanaged aggressive behavior. These factors significantly contributed to his inability to form healthy relationships and his propensity for violence.

2. Impact of Relationships: The relationship with Helen Harvey was critical in Martin's life, providing him with rare acceptance but also granting him access to firearms, which became tools for his impending massacre.

3. Systemic Failures: Attempts by Bryant's parents to manage his behavior were insufficient, highlighting systemic failures in addressing severe behavioral and psychological issues in childhood.

4. Historical Legacy: Tasmania's history as a penal colony sets a historical context that underscores themes of punishment and isolation, paralleling Bryant's personal narrative.

5. Foreshadowing of Tragedy: The episode skillfully builds towards the impending tragedy by detailing the accumulation of grievances, access to weapons, and the psychological deterioration of Bryant, setting the stage for the catastrophic events of the Port Arthur massacre.

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Upcoming in Part II

The hosts hint at an in-depth exploration of the Port Arthur massacre itself in the next episode, promising detailed accounts of the events, the chaos unleashed, and the aftermath that reshaped Australia's gun control laws.

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Note: This summary excludes advertisements, casual host banter unrelated to the main content, and promotional segments to focus solely on the substantive discussion surrounding Martin Bryant and the Port Arthur massacre.

Transcript

[Marcus Parks]

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[Henry Zabrowski]

What if you could turn your curiosity for true crime into a degree at Southern New Hampshire University? You can. Southern New Hampshire University offers over 200 degrees you can earn completely online, including subjects like forensic psychology, criminology and and crime analysis. And with low online tuition, Southern New Hampshire University makes earning your degree affordable, flexible, and achievable. Find your degree@ SNHU.edu lastpodcast. That's SNHU.edu slash last podcast. There's no place to escape to. This is the last podcast on the left. That's when the cannibalism started. What was that? Oh, yeah.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah, yeah. Okay.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Yeah. I'm crying. I'm crying Cause I'm too dark. God, I'm so dark. I'm dark and mysterious.

[Marcus Parks]

You are.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Yeah. Me and Trent Reznor hanging out.

[Marcus Parks]

Yep. The two of you. I could not see a better duo out there having fun. Peas in a pot, eating sliders.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Batman and Robin. There's Trent Reznor. There's me hanging out, just sitting there.

[Ed Larson]

Just be like, hey, hey.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Do you ever feel a. Mr. Reznor? Do you ever feel like you maybe you're too sad? Ever thought about adding some. Some of that greasy ass funk when.

[Marcus Parks]

You did that Closer video, did that pig head smell?

[Henry Zabrowski]

Yeah. When you said me like an animal, mean like a horse or a llama or were you talking about a guy?

[Ed Larson]

The perfect drug. Is that heroin or China?

[Henry Zabrowski]

The perfect drug for me, it's a leave because it really helps me with my joint issues. Mr. Reznor, come back.

[Marcus Parks]

Welcome to the last podcast on the left. Ladies and gentlemen. My name is Marcus Parks.

[Henry Zabrowski]

I'm tugging on your tunic. Mr. Reznor. Please just let me in the clubhouse. Let me hang out with you. I'm dark.

[Marcus Parks]

I'm here with Trent Reznor's new best friend, Henry Zabrowski.

[Henry Zabrowski]

It's me. It's your buddy. I got that gum you like. Here you go. You want some cinnamon gum? I know it's super hard to chew, which is what you like.

[Marcus Parks]

And some people have called him the perfect drug. His name is Ed Larson.

[Ed Larson]

That's right. I only listen to Trent Reznor because I like Atticus Finch.

[Marcus Parks]

Nice.

[Ed Larson]

Yeah.

[Marcus Parks]

Put it both together.

[Ed Larson]

That's right. That's right. Yeah. I'm not. He's the guy he makes all the soundtracks with.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Now I understand. Yes. Yeah. After we saw Nick Cave, I did not understand that Warren Ellis wasn't the comic book writer Warren Ellis I had to argue with.

[Marcus Parks]

I don't know if you remember, but after we left the Nick Cave show.

[Henry Zabrowski]

I might have been intoxicated.

[Marcus Parks]

I had to argue with you for a good two to three minutes in the Uber that the Warren Ellis that plays with Nick Cave is not the same that writes the comic books. You would not believe me.

[Henry Zabrowski]

I still don't.

[Ed Larson]

I mean, he looks like a prospecting wizard.

[Henry Zabrowski]

That's what all the comic book writers look like. Have you seen Alan Moore? He looks just like Alan Moore.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah, he does look like Alan Moore, but Warren Ellis does not look like Warren Ellis.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Because you know what it is? It's the pewter rings. That's what I thought. Because all comic book writers that we have met tell me I'm. Don't tell me I'm wrong.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Every comic book writer I've ever met loves giant pewter rings.

[Marcus Parks]

Oh, James Tinian doesn't wear pewter rings.

[Henry Zabrowski]

No. But it's in his heart.

[Marcus Parks]

Today on Last podcast on the left, we're starting a new true crime story. Ladies and gentlemen, we're covering one of the biggest in history. Today we're going to be covering the Port Arthur massacre and its perpetrator, Martin Bryant.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Yeah. Best to ever do it.

[Ed Larson]

Is that true?

[Marcus Parks]

The best.

[Henry Zabrowski]

No, no, no, no. He slid down the list now.

[Ed Larson]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. But I mean, you know, that's. If we're going to be dickheads about it. I feel like the guy from University of Texas, probably the best.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Oh, you're talking about the O.G.

[Marcus Parks]

Oh, Whitman.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Whitman. Oh, yeah.

[Ed Larson]

I mean, that was like if any of them had talent.

[Marcus Parks]

Okay. People can't see you do the quote unquote.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Like, they can't. He caught it.

[Marcus Parks]

And let's not say talent. Maybe we could say skill.

[Ed Larson]

Skill, Skill, skill.

[Marcus Parks]

I knew him.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Charles Whitman is like the Madonna of mass shooters. He started it all. You know what I mean? And he really kind of set the template.

[Ed Larson]

One more share.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah. So Martin Bryant, AKA the most irritating man in history, was the perpetrator of the 1996 Port Arthur massacre on the Australian island of Tasmania, in which 23 people were wounded and 30, 35 were killed using an AR15, a semiautomatic.308 and a shotgun. Martin killed with incredible speed and utter cruelty, murdering 12 people and wounding 10 in just the first 15 seconds of the massacre. Bryant even took a hostage. And the ordeal only ended when the bed and breakfast he'd barricaded himself inside began to burn down from a fire Bryant had set himself. And the cops arrested him in the BB's front yard, naked because his clothes had been burned away.

[Henry Zabrowski]

He's a dumber version of Wile E. Coyote. I've been trying to figure out which cartoon character Martin Bryant is, because the more you watch him, the more you realize that he really was in his entirely own world.

[Marcus Parks]

He's an unreal person, totally unreal character.

[Henry Zabrowski]

You're talking about doing mass shootings while walking around going, you like, like whistling and snapping and like laughing and, and walking around like. He's essentially in my mind, which Marcus didn't necessarily agree with, but him as like Roger Rabbit. Like, he's like Roger Rabbit, loved everybody. But imagine trying to make the world laugh. Imagine Roger Rabbit with antisocial personality disorder and an extremely easy to use assault rifle.

[Ed Larson]

Can this guy sing?

[Henry Zabrowski]

Yeah, I mean, I don't know.

[Ed Larson]

He seems strong though. I mean if you're carrying around an AR15 and a shotgun and like all those rounds and shit.

[Marcus Parks]

He actually was like, they said he was naturally like athletic, like actually like pretty big.

[Ed Larson]

God, just.

[Henry Zabrowski]

But also they're built, they are made completely easy to shoot. They have no recoil. Anybody could shoot. A child can shoot it. A 14 year old can shoot near a president.

[Ed Larson]

We do know.

[Marcus Parks]

But while the Port Arthur massacre was the deadliest mass shooting in world history, at the time, mass shooting being defined as five or more people killed in a single incident.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Thank you.

[Marcus Parks]

It has since been bumped down to number 11 because of Australia's response to the massacre. However, there has not been a single mass shooting in Australia since Port Arthur. See, after the extremely unstable 29 year old Martin Bryant purchased an arsenal of guns without licenses, using money he inherited from an eccentric middle aged gambling heir he was possibly banging, Australia as a whole decided that there really was no way of preventing people like Martin Bryant from obtaining weapons of mass death. So instead of throwing up their hands and saying that mass shootings were just something we all had to deal with as a part of our everyday lives, Australia put strict gun control laws in place. And as a result, Australia has not had a mass shooting in exactly 29 years. As today is, coincidentally as it always is, the anniversary of the Port Arthur massacre.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Yay. Didn't realize that when we scheduled it. We mean it.

[Marcus Parks]

We really did not realize it at all. Every time.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Yeah.

[Ed Larson]

If we realized, it would have been the 30th anniversary.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Yes.

[Ed Larson]

You got to do a round number.

[Marcus Parks]

Not 29.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Very strange. But, you know, this is. I'm just glad we learned our lesson.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah. America. Yeah. How many times?

[Henry Zabrowski]

I mean, you know, it's more. The lesson really for me is always is live and let love.

[Ed Larson]

Now we're trained on how to not get shot when they happen.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah, that is true. No, it's like I'm totally trained to, like, look at the exits at every place I enter.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Yeah, yeah. I know when I hear something, like a car report, like a loud, like noise from something and stuff, and I'm scared. In a public place, it's nice to feel the heart rate rise because I didn't get cardio that day. It's helping. It's actually really helping with the obesity epidemic. It really does. Yeah.

[Ed Larson]

Because, you know, you get stronger every time you pick up a woman as a human shield.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Always an old woman, always. Unfortunately, it's got to be somebody who's near the end of life. They make great human shields.

[Ed Larson]

Your life has been great, right? Yes.

[Henry Zabrowski]

One more time, lady, One more time.

[Marcus Parks]

But really, when it comes to the gun control issue, the keywords here are people like Martin Bryant. Because as we're gonna see over the course of this series, there really wasn't anything that anyone could have done to put Bryant on a non sociopathic track. Because people did try again and again throughout his life. See, this isn't the story of a kid slipping through the cracks who could have turned from the path of mass murder if only someone would have reached out. Rather, this story is proof that some people are just straight up bastards from birth. And there's very little that any of us can do about it.

[Ed Larson]

Dude, I knew this kid when my mom was watching, like she was babysitting. There was one kid who was just awful. Yeah, his name was Adam. He ended up being like when I met him when he was older and he ended up being completely normal.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Just straightened out.

[Ed Larson]

Yeah, he just straightened out. But like, I remember, like as a child, I have this distinct memory of him ripping off his diaper, looking my mom dead in the eyes, and then just putting the shit on the wall. It just like, just being like, that's that kid. As a four year old, I'm like, that kid sucks.

[Henry Zabrowski]

That's a strong ass baby that understands their boundaries and, and I mean, order the Deal? Yeah.

[Marcus Parks]

Now, Australia very much did not want information about Martin Bryant to be available so as to deny him the satisfaction of being known. This is a lot like how New Zealand has tried to erase the 2019 Christchurch shooter from the pages of their history altogether.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Well, there is also a cultural thing in Australia and especially in Oceania. Right. The idea of not putting out the. And not talking about the shooter themselves.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah. But we're of the opinion that telling these stories can be helpful because they might result in someone recognizing the signs of an upcoming mass shooting event. Because we all know we're years away from any meaningful legislation being passed here in America.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Years? Decades, maybe Never.

[Ed Larson]

Never.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Never. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Once the solar flare comes, it wipes out the Internet and then the first pile of guns and ammunition goes away. That's when we're really going to start talking about banning those guns.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah. And while I do understand Australia and New Zealand's motivation in wanting to forget people like Martin Bryant ever existed, or from even acknowledging they exist in the first place, I'm also of the opinion that whether it's one victim or 35, choosing to cover some true crime stories, not others, it's kind of hypocritical. Plus there's the fact that even though Martin Bryant is an annoying on every level, his story is still utterly fascinating.

[Henry Zabrowski]

It's kind of because he's annoying shit happening. And again, never deny what makes you special.

[Marcus Parks]

So for our two sources today, we used Port Arthur, A Story of Strength and Courage by Margaret Scott. That's for information on Tasmania and the shooting itself. While Born or Bred by Robert Wainwright and Paolo Totaro. That's the only real source of information about Bryant's life. We use that for his biography. Now, before we get into Martin Bryant's life story, it might behoove us to talk a little bit about the history of Tasmania itself because there is a fascinating connection between Martin Bryant and the island's past. To wit, Bryant's history is directly related to Australia's history as a penal colony for the British. And Port Arthur itself, the site of Bryant's massacre, only existed as a tourist town whose main attraction was an historic British colonial penitentiary.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Now, what I hope you guys do, we talked about this before the show, is that I would. I hope you guys do, as an audience is it's time to take your history AIDS prep, especially if you're not going to wear a full body head condom in order to listen to this. Because the history we're about to traffic it because I laughed when I read the Script because they were like, you know, we like to set up context here.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah.

[Henry Zabrowski]

But then immediately it was like back in 1789, I was just like, holy. Oh, God, no. Oh, no. Two episodes on Tasmania's rocks.

[Marcus Parks]

It's important for the historical context. And it's also fascinating stuff. I mean, to give a brief history of Australia's founding.

[Ed Larson]

Get.

[Marcus Parks]

All right, kids.

[Henry Zabrowski]

You fall asleep, I'm railing your mother in front of you. That's how stepdads run into school.

[Ed Larson]

Better than coffee.

[Marcus Parks]

The British, prior to 1776, sent many of their convicted felons to their American colonies. Basically, crime had hit a high in England in the 18th century. And since they weren't executing people for petty crimes anymore, they didn't have enough prisons to hold all their criminals. So many British criminals were first sent here to America. It's a little known fact about America is that there's a lot of convicts who are early settlers.

[Henry Zabrowski]

I. I had a feeling. I also feel like, yeah, we got a lot of runoff.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah.

[Henry Zabrowski]

And there's a lot of crazies.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah. And plenty of other convicts ended up in colonies like Canada, West Indies and Madagascar. But in 1788, after America was no longer a British colony, their government decided to send the vast majority of their exiled prisoners to Australia.

[Ed Larson]

Man, give us our prisoners back.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Yeah, man.

[Ed Larson]

Fucking Australia, you greedy bastards.

[Henry Zabrowski]

You know what's nice though, is that you go to Australia because that's where the girls are hot, right? The guys are fun, the beer is cold, the bath of koalas are hot.

[Ed Larson]

Wombats kill people with their ass.

[Henry Zabrowski]

I know. And they're all also like, apparently, like, they taste good.

[Marcus Parks]

Oh, I love Australia.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Me too.

[Ed Larson]

It's really cool. Except for this.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Well, they learned their lesson. That's why it's cool.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah, that's why it's great that they actually fucking did something about it. Now, British convicts were first sent to Botany Bay near Sydney. But within a few years, the British government began pouring criminals, specifically into the island of Tasmania. By 1832, the island was home to over 12,000 British convicts who were used mostly for slave labor. They produced timber and wheat, they worked in the coal mines, and they processed the meat and blubber from whales and seals. Prisoners would work at least 12 hours a day in chains, and quite a few died either during labor or as a result of the brutal punishments enacted by their jailers. The most common punishment in the penal colonies was flogging with a cat o'nine tails, where the prisoner would be tied to a triangle shaped wooden Frame and flogged while the guards and the other prisoners verbally roasted them.

[Henry Zabrowski]

You cry in pain like a little girl.

[Ed Larson]

Oi, your mother's a platypus and jean shorts.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Oh, the way you're squirming around there, you're like little girl. Yeah, nice mouth.

[Ed Larson]

Looks like you could swallow a didgeridoo.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Hey, I want to take another whip there. What are you, a bunch of milk? I don't. I'm not a comedy writer. I whip it out. I'm sick of being forced to do all these business format. It's not different. All right, so I just gotta whip his bottom and not make another clever remark.

[Ed Larson]

Still better than listening. A silver chair.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Hey, silver chair is quite impressive for all being 17 years old.

[Ed Larson]

Yeah, but when are they gonna grow up?

[Henry Zabrowski]

They were frozen in time by suicide.

[Marcus Parks]

But according to the prisoners, the punishment that was far worse than the potentially fatal practice of flogging was the psychologically debilitating practice of rock breaking, which was saved for only the worst of the worst. In this punishment, PR would be chained to an iron post where they would be forced to smash rocks with a hammer for 12 hours a day without being able to move from that one single spot. The punishment here was the monotony which drove some prisoners to the brink of insanity. For example, one prisoner became so unhinged after rock breaking day after day that he beat another prisoner to death because a trip to the gallows was in his mind, preferable to enduring another second of rock breaking.

[Henry Zabrowski]

And that's got to be so hard to just hang out because it's you, your chain next to another guy, one of you is gonna smash the brains of the other. Yeah, eventually, you know, like, at some point you have to figure out who's gonna make the jump first, you know, like, you got. Maybe you do it at the same time. Like, you go at you like, ah, maybe next time. That's a funny looking rock. And then turns into my sketch from the characters where you slowly form a pile of rocks that look like a lady. You stick your dick in it.

[Ed Larson]

That's right. That's right.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah. That. That hit series, the characters, they could.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Have done something with it. There was a lot of opportunity there that they left on the table. Okay. Daredevil season two killed us. And then the new Pee Wee Herman movie drove the fucking nail to the casket.

[Ed Larson]

I mean, Tim Robinson's doing great.

[Henry Zabrowski]

He's fine. You think?

[Ed Larson]

There's one guy who just hated rocks.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah. Loved it.

[Henry Zabrowski]

It's the best day of my Goddamn day long and get to torture Rock.

[Ed Larson]

I fucking hate you, Rock.

[Marcus Parks]

Now, the slave labor was a pretty sweet deal for the British. So sentences at the Tasmanian penal colony could be extended for infractions large and minuscule. You could get your sentence extended for anything from talking in church to failing to turn your shirt in on laundry day. But once the prisoners finished their sentences, they were free to settle the lands around them. And as it happened, Martin Bryant's great great grandfather and one of his great great grandmothers had both been English convicts who'd been sent to Tasmania as punishment.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Cute. Oh, that's nice. They met back in the day.

[Marcus Parks]

Oh, no, they didn't meet back in the day. They were like different branches of, like, criminal. Yeah, that's cute.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Yeah. People say dating's hard. Yeah.

[Marcus Parks]

No, they didn't. Again, they didn't date each other. They were different branches of the Bryant. Not the Br Bryant family. The other, his mother's side of the family.

[Ed Larson]

It is adorable.

[Henry Zabrowski]

I could see families having sex with each other.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah, you can. Yeah, you can. In prison. Yeah, Just type that in. Families having sex with each other in prison guarantee you something's coming up.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Oh, wow. How erotic these private prison systems need to be. We need to take a look at this because I don't know where they're.

[Marcus Parks]

Getting the lube from.

[Ed Larson]

So they sent women, too?

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah.

[Ed Larson]

That's crazy.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah, man, they sent everybody. Because that. That's always the question of like, well, you know, if Tasmania, you know, if Australia was a penal colony, like, how.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Where were the chicks?

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah. Where the women were also sent.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Wow, Cool.

[Ed Larson]

Now it makes sense.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah. Now, Martin Bryant's lineage didn't necessarily clean itself up as the years ticked by. In Tasmania, Bryant's mother, Carlene, was raised by a man who often suffered from alcoholic psychosis. This man married Carlene's 19 year old mother when he was 54 years old. Well, Carlene's life actually seems to be one of those cursed existences that we sometimes find in our research. You know, these types of people whose lives are just marked by tragedy after tragedy, none of which are their own making. For example, when Carlene was a young woman working as a waitress in the small Tasmanian coastal town of Swansea, she met and fell in love with a man who left her for another woman. The suitor soon reappeared to tell Carlene that she was the woman he really loved. But he then killed himself by carbon monoxide poisoning almost immediately after telling her.

[Ed Larson]

At least I had a car.

[Henry Zabrowski]

No, it's the brighter side.

[Marcus Parks]

It is the Brighter side here on Last Podcast Network. You can listen every week now. A few years after her ill fated romance, Carlene met her future husband, Maurice Bryant. Maurice was an English immigrant from Newcastle who was one of thousands of Englishmen who migrated to Australia after World War II by paying just £10 for a ticket to the continent.

[Henry Zabrowski]

What an upgrade.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Right.

[Marcus Parks]

From Newcastle to Australia.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Beautiful Australia. Just so much fun. And again with the volleyball and the. And the shrimp and.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah, but we're looking at. Please. But we're looking at Australia from like a modern perspective. Australia in 1951, when he went, was rough.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Yeah.

[Marcus Parks]

Like it was underdeveloped.

[Henry Zabrowski]

I just feel like all the criminal ladies there must also be kind of fun.

[Ed Larson]

I mean, it was all leather and whips back then.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah, Yeah. I may be wrong on this decade, but I don't think Australia got color TV till like the 80s.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Yeah, yeah. They didn't know what people were supposed to look like.

[Marcus Parks]

Maurice and Carlene met in Tasmania in 1965, almost 15 years after Maurice arrived. And after just one date, Maurice proposed. Carlene, believing she was running out of chances to get married at the age of 27, accepted. Very 1965. Maurice had just as much tragedy in his life as Carlene did. When Maurice was seven years old, he found his mother dead in the home pantry. But since Maurice was so young, he didn't register that his mother was now a corpse. He thought she was playing a game. So he jumped on the body and asked for a horsey ride.

[Henry Zabrowski]

It would have been even worse if she gave him the horsey ride.

[Marcus Parks]

That would have been. Well, it would have been a horror movie.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Well, then her body might have been jerking back and forth, back and forth because the electricity.

[Marcus Parks]

No, she died from tuberculosis. That would have. That may have been the case if she was like. Had been like murdered very suddenly. But now it's tuberculosis and your body is usually withers away.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Yeah.

[Marcus Parks]

She crawled into a hole and died.

[Henry Zabrowski]

There's no working in jerking with that.

[Marcus Parks]

No.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Especially when you die next to the crackers.

[Ed Larson]

Yeah.

[Henry Zabrowski]

That's gotta be. That's a horrible way to die. Never die on top of the rice.

[Marcus Parks]

No.

[Ed Larson]

I want to say this right now. If you find me dead, go ahead. Horsey ride all day.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Oh yeah, dude. Yeah, noted. It's gonna be about a 25 minutes bit picture. I'm going to do a shoot. Yeah. I'm going to do it for putting various fun costumes. Just to have that as the last. Because of course, once we're booking out your funeral, we're going to use that as the projection show.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah.

[Ed Larson]

Turn my coffin into a submarine. I don't give a.

[Henry Zabrowski]

It's easy to do one push into a harbor.

[Marcus Parks]

Well, Maurice Bryant claimed that this experience, you know, finding his mother dead, was deeply scarring.

[Henry Zabrowski]

What?

[Marcus Parks]

And as a result of that and other factors, Maurice struggled with depressive mood swings and deep alcoholism throughout his life.

[Henry Zabrowski]

And never, ever show him more than five cans of beans because he will just start crying and then he'll throw up, then he has a seizure and then you gotta clean everything up and go spend the rest of your day in an emergency room.

[Ed Larson]

Yeah, or lay down and give him a horsey ride.

[Henry Zabrowski]

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[Ed Larson]

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[Henry Zabrowski]

Why overpay?

[Ed Larson]

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[Henry Zabrowski]

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[Marcus Parks]

By 1967, Maurice and Carlene had settled in the Tasmanian capital of Hobart. This was just after the Black Tuesday bushfires of 1967, in which 52 people were killed and 1300 homes were burnt to ashes. But Black Tuesday was a bit of an opportunity for Maurice. See, while Maurice made money wherever he could by working at the docks, picking fruit seasonally, or flipping antiques he found in thrift stores, his passion was buying and selling real estate. And it was in one of the first homes he bought that he and Carlene welcomed their first child, Martin Bryant, in 1967. Now, Martin seemed to be an utterly broken soul. From the very beginning, as a baby, it was said that he rejected any sort of affection. And his mother, Carlene, claimed that she found it impossible to bond with her new child.

[Henry Zabrowski]

This is one of those things I think ladies do get. Get afraid of when they have a baby. Right. When it doesn't latch right. If it doesn't do these things, they're all worried, is the baby going to turn into a Martin Bryant. But then sometimes it just turns out they don't have the suckle muscles to get it all through.

[Marcus Parks]

Talking about yourself.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Your big crazy nipples. Yeah.

[Marcus Parks]

Because then your mother's big crazy nuts.

[Henry Zabrowski]

And they must be. If I couldn't rap, if I couldn't get the milk, how big are the nipples?

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Because then I. Now I'm starting to understand a lot more. So they blamed my sucker muscles.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah.

[Henry Zabrowski]

On my mother's tits.

[Marcus Parks]

And now you think it was.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Now I'm starting to understand. I think it's my mom's tits fault. Not my fault.

[Marcus Parks]

This is something you came upon in therapy.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Yeah. He said, stop talking about it. And I said, no, this is huge for me. It's not my fault. It's my mom's tits fault. And that's the new piece of merch.

[Ed Larson]

But you had no problem latching onto that Philly cheesesteak.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Oh, yeah, dude, I fucking. Absolutely. I'm blowing bubbles with gum. I'm doing lots. I'm having milkshakes. I get suck, suck, suck all day long. I'm. I can't believe for a second I couldn't get that milk because I really wanted it.

[Ed Larson]

Maybe it was backed up.

[Henry Zabrowski]

You think she had a. Yeah, like a little block. Whoa. Yeah.

[Ed Larson]

Sometimes you got to work at it.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Still, it's the tits fault.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah. All right, last podcast, merch.com.

[Ed Larson]

It'S the tits fault. It's not me.

[Marcus Parks]

It's the mother. My mother's tits. Yeah. Now, once Martin reached toddler age, he also became fiercely independent and uncontrollable, wandering out of their house at all hours. Eventually, Carlene had to fix Martin with a harness and tether him to something just to keep him inside.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Sounds familiar.

[Marcus Parks]

Did you also get harnessed?

[Henry Zabrowski]

We've talked about this.

[Ed Larson]

Yeah.

[Marcus Parks]

Really?

[Ed Larson]

Oh, yeah. Henry was a harnessed kid.

[Henry Zabrowski]

I was fully Hannibal Lectered from place to place. I had a strap from my waist to the shopping cart and then a strap from my wrist to my mother's wrist, and I was elephant walked from place to place because I was, like, a little. I was a. I was ready to go. I would take off my clothes, and I would just run in one direction, and I knocked the whole display down once in a grocery store.

[Marcus Parks]

Oh, in Queens.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Yeah. And they had to come get me, and they found me. And then I. They. When they had found me, I had peeled the stickers off a couple of bananas, and I'd stuck them up my nose, and we couldn't get them out. So then they had to take me to the emergency room. Room. The whole time, I'm just sitting there like, yes. Attention acquired.

[Ed Larson]

Yeah, you got to tie them up sometimes.

[Marcus Parks]

Sometimes you got to tie them up.

[Ed Larson]

When I see those kids, like, on a leash at Disneyland or at the airport or something, you know, at first you're like, oh, bad parenting. And then you're like, no. You take care of them.

[Henry Zabrowski]

No. Yeah, cut the leash and see what happens.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah. No, they're doing that for our benefit. So that kid's not. So you don't turn around and the kid's rooting through your luggage.

[Henry Zabrowski]

They're not protecting me from you. They're protecting you from me. Got any milk?

[Marcus Parks]

Well, the neighbors looked down on Carlene Bryant for doing this, for tying up her son. They said that the Bryants were treating their child like a dog. But Carlene, in what would be the first of many exhausted explanations throughout her life, defended the practice by saying that she at least knew that little Martin was safe. See, Carlene loved Martin, but she found it extremely difficult to actually like her child. Likewise, Maurice Bryant found Martin to be just plain weird and therefore spent most of his energy trying to make his son normal. Martin, however, was anything but. Martin was slow to learn how to talk, and his fine motor skills didn't really develop. But the absolute worst part was that when he reached the age of three, Maurice and Carlene discovered that their son had a. An inexhaustible well of energy. I can't be contained.

[Henry Zabrowski]

I can't be contained.

[Ed Larson]

Yeah.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Dare you. Won't even do it. Can't do it. Can't get me.

[Marcus Parks]

Undisciplined, Carlene would take Martin for hours, long walks every day to try to tire him out. But the feverish, unstoppable motor that seemed to power his every waking moment was impossible to control. For example, Carlene was getting her hair done at the salon one day when Martin fell off a balcony and split open his head. After being taken to the hospital, Martin had to be given adult strength sed so he could sit still long enough to get stitches. And even then, it took an hour for the sedatives to kick in.

[Henry Zabrowski]

I know what you're gonna do. You're trying to knock me out. You're gonna replace me with another child, and it's not gonna happen because I got eyes on the sides and backs and bottom of my head.

[Ed Larson]

Gotta tie that kid up.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Can't get me, kid. Can't be. I'm utterly uncontrollable. And I'm a fun little guy. So what are you gonna do about it, you fucking doctor? What are you gonna do, huh? Gonna get me? You shut me down, Doctor.

[Marcus Parks]

Extraordinarily annoying. Yeah, well, I mean, one of the things I really like. I don't know if we've established yet so far, like, just how incredibly irritating Martin Bryant grew up to be.

[Henry Zabrowski]

No, we haven't, and I won't let you. I am interrupting man. Interrupting man. Interrupting man.

[Marcus Parks]

I mean, Martin Bryant, like, you know, he was the type of guy that would book transatlantic flights so he would have someone who was forced to talk to him for 12 hours straight.

[Henry Zabrowski]

You come around here often? I do because I'm a diamond.

[Ed Larson]

I'm just here for the flight. I'll turn it right back around.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Oh, yeah. I love airports.

[Marcus Parks]

No, he was an incredibly like. And we'll get into it.

[Henry Zabrowski]

More fat. Oh, yeah. Was it lack of exercise or is it just being a big tubby fuck?

[Marcus Parks]

But, like, not just irritating, but aggressive, you know? We're gonna get into that right now. I mean, one school could only stand to have him for less than a year before the staff decided they couldn't deal with him anymore. And they suggested that the Bryants instead have Martin examined by psychiatrists and eventually be medicated. Medication, however, did absolutely nothing for Martin.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Can't touch me.

[Marcus Parks]

And when he was sent to another school, A lifelong cycle of rejection, alienation and solitude began because the other kids didn't like Martin any more than his mother did. It was not, however, because Martin was just weird or because he had a speech impediment or because his learning abilities bordered on mentally challenged. All those things were true. But as anyone who's worked in childcare like I have can tell you, some kids are just dickheads. And they're only made worse when the other kids volley back. When Martin was examined in 1975 at the age of eight, he was determined to be a slow learner, possessing fairly low base intelligence. But most of all, Martin was deemed to be an unusually aggressive child.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Thank you. I tried really hard to be.

[Marcus Parks]

Martin was known to throw things at other kids, kick them, spit on them. Sometimes he'd urinate on other kids. But Martin was also fully aware that he was doing something wrong when he got aggressive with others. To mitigate punishment, Martin would suck up to his teachers and had a whole routine worked out for showing remorse when needed. Like some of the pyromaniacs we talked about a few episodes ago, Martin would play up his disabilities when he got into trouble. And likewise, Martin also had a defense mechanism against the other kids. Since Martin was such a dick, the other kids would respond in kind and gang up on him. But when the other kids gave chase, Martin would cry and squeal so pitifully that the other kids would just sort of give up because they felt sorry for him.

[Ed Larson]

Man, to break the heart of a larrikin.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Just sniffling little like that. I want to beat it to death. You know what I mean? I want to strangle it up. And I want also play volleyball with his. With his balls.

[Ed Larson]

Right.

[Henry Zabrowski]

I wanted to carve him up, but this is kind of weak. Yeah, I'm not saying because also as adult, an adult, remember, if you are ever attacked, this is a good way to alleviate the. This situation.

[Marcus Parks]

Cry.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Just start going, no, no, no, no, no.

[Ed Larson]

Oh, you know, he did the go limp thing.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Oh, yeah, of course. I. We had annoying kids like this, like, and that's the problem then. See, my bullies in school, they understand. You just keep beating the out of them.

[Ed Larson]

You know what I mean?

[Henry Zabrowski]

Like, they were never turned off by it.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah, none of mine were turned off by that either.

[Henry Zabrowski]

No, because I'll always remember America.

[Marcus Parks]

The land, the country without pity. Oh, yeah, it's America.

[Henry Zabrowski]

The closest I had was when they was in the school.

[Ed Larson]

I was.

[Henry Zabrowski]

It was a daycare after seeing problem trial 3 for the fourth time in a row. Which is a lot of this story. And they. They pushed me down to the bathroom and removed my towel. After the. We went to a pool and they all were laughing at my tiny penis.

[Ed Larson]

Oh, that's what was underneath.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Yeah. And when they were laughing at it, that's when they. But it was more like. Then they just got. There was like, the joke ended.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah.

[Henry Zabrowski]

And then I was just naked on the floor and they're like, well, see you tomorrow.

[Ed Larson]

I had an experience like that, except I was the.

[Marcus Parks]

You were the guy.

[Henry Zabrowski]

You were the guy.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah.

[Henry Zabrowski]

The big. Yeah, we're the big bully.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah. Sorry.

[Henry Zabrowski]

You just made guys like me.

[Marcus Parks]

Well, as long as it's. I think we're majority receivers on this podcast, we're okay because me and Henry were both rece. Yeah, we were both receivers of the bullying rather than the perpetrators.

[Ed Larson]

I got bullied a lot until I realized I could beat up most kids.

[Marcus Parks]

You see, you were big and I was a tiny. We were. I was a tiny, skinny boy and Henry was a tiny, fat boy.

[Henry Zabrowski]

But I had the power of the written word because, as you see, the pen is mightier than the soap. Why did you say that there?

[Marcus Parks]

Well, that was also. That was kind of the part of the problem with Martin Bryant and the problem with a lot of kids like this is that, like, he starts off as extremely annoying, very aggressive, which causes kids to bully him. And the bullying throughout his life was extreme. It got really bad. But the problem is that the bullying makes the behavior worse. And it's this, like, you know, this vicious cycle that just keeps going and going and going. Now, as Martin grew older, his endless energy did not abate one bit. Martin disturbed every classroom he was a part of, and both of his parents had to work endlessly to keep him occupied, sometimes taking him for walks of up to 8 miles long, where Martin would bounce relentlessly from beginning to end. Martin's behavior actually got so chaotic that one of his fuck ups made the local news. One day he was playing with some fireworks he found in his father's garage and ended up lighting a rocket in the attic of his family's home. The rocket lit Martin's clothes on fire and the resulting burns resulted in skin grafts, a six week stay at the hospital, and embarrassingly for the Bryants, an interview with the local news. When a reporter asked Martin from his hospital bed if he would still play with fireworks after being hurt so badly, Martin energetically and enthusiastically replied, yes, yes.

[Henry Zabrowski]

He literally said, yes. And then they were like, but didn't you learn your lesson and he's just like, yeah, I learned a lesson, but I'm still going to play with fireworks. And this is apparently a thing that would be how he responds to stuff from then on. Like, his lawyer talked about dealing with Martin Bryant. And one of the things where, like, every once in a while, he'd be like, you know, Martin, you should feel bad for what you did. You should feel bad about this, you know, and, like, you should feel good for. And then he's just like, well, I guess I feel bad then. That was, like, his response. But then he was fully Bugs Bunny, though.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah.

[Ed Larson]

Or the Joker.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Yes.

[Marcus Parks]

No. I mean, even calling the Joe. That's even giving him too much credit.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Yeah. He was not the Joker plan. The Joker had a crew.

[Ed Larson]

He had followers.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Marcus Parks]

Now, by 1980, Martin Bryant had reached high school, where his behavior and grades were just as bad as they'd always been. Been. Teachers also noticed that Bryant was extremely manipulative, because while he was consistently a monster to kids his own age, he always made sure to be polite to adults. And as I said before, he knew when and how to act disabled in order to get out of trouble.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Did you have that? My mom always had that thing they were called by the Eddie Hescol.

[Marcus Parks]

Ah.

[Henry Zabrowski]

That's what the term was from Leave it to Beaver. She'd be like your friend Nicholas's little Eddie Haskell. And it's because they come in and they would be like, yes, Mrs. Zabrowski, of course.

[Marcus Parks]

I was one of those kids.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Yeah.

[Marcus Parks]

Good at it.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Oh, yeah.

[Ed Larson]

I was hanging with the parents.

[Henry Zabrowski]

I was just good.

[Ed Larson]

You just said that you had to be tied to a shopping cart.

[Henry Zabrowski]

I was filled with energy. There was nothing. I wouldn't qualify that as good or bad. I would qualify that as bad. No, it's bad.

[Marcus Parks]

It's 100% bad.

[Henry Zabrowski]

If they could have harnessed it into sports or something.

[Ed Larson]

If you were a dog, you would have been sent to the pound.

[Henry Zabrowski]

That's what. Yeah. Guess what? I would have made friends of the pound. I would have worked out. Well, teachers also me sitting a bunch of other dogs. Come on, come on. Give me, give me.

[Marcus Parks]

Well, the whole thing about Martin Bryant being manipulative to adults, all that. This, to me, is partly what made Martin Bryant so incredibly dangerous. See, Martin was diagnosed as autistic after the massacre. And while I certainly agree with that diagnosis, I think what motivated Bryant's bad behavior more than anything was antisocial personality disorder. Unlike many people on the spectrum who have a hard time understanding social cues, Martin Bryant proved over and over again that he had a keen understanding of what was acceptable and what wasn't. He knew what would provoke negative reactions from other people. He just didn't give a. And he lived his life accordingly.

[Henry Zabrowski]

He definitely had that like he was like not all there but he, he knew what he was doing was wrong.

[Marcus Parks]

Oh yeah, Always at all times.

[Henry Zabrowski]

But he also had a perennial like this feeling of like, why does everybody hate me though? I am being myself. According to Martin Bryant, in his head he's just being himself and he's just this. He's just born annoying.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Do you know what it's like being me when you're born half annoying? You know, I mean it's just a part of your life and you have to either harness it or not.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah.

[Ed Larson]

Do you think he had like every disorder?

[Marcus Parks]

Almost.

[Ed Larson]

Yeah.

[Henry Zabrowski]

He's nothing, nothing goofy.

[Marcus Parks]

I mean there, I mean some people say that he was possibly schizophrenic. You know, there's you know, the autism spectrum disorder, schizophrenia personality disorder. Like it's. He was clinically what you'd call all up.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Yeah, he was all jacked up and he was cuckoo bananas and schizophrenic.

[Ed Larson]

I don't know much about this stuff.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah, he wasn't schizophrenic.

[Henry Zabrowski]

It was a catch all thing in a while where they were trying to figure out like any single time schizophrenia got thrown around real loosely in the news. Yeah.

[Ed Larson]

Because apparently that's the worst one, right?

[Henry Zabrowski]

Well, no, I don't know. No, they all kind of. It's interesting on some level at their extremities. They all sort of dovetail with the various symptoms that it brings up. Schizophrenia is the most, like you'd be the most dislocated. But it's. Anything can lead to these sort of like fugue states or like this type of thing. And the schizophrenia is just one of them.

[Marcus Parks]

But the paradox of Martin Bryant, at least when it comes to the average profile of the mass shooter, was that he was considered extremely handsome by the time he reached high school.

[Henry Zabrowski]

That's all anybody says about him.

[Marcus Parks]

They just talk about, about it all the time.

[Ed Larson]

Nobody kind of looks like the, the dude with, from Die Hard like the, like the head henchman. Yeah, like for, for Alan Rickman.

[Marcus Parks]

He's got head henchmen look. Definitely. Yeah. Well, I mean the best way I could put it, he's like a more handsome version of Dave Mustaine. He does the lead singer of Megadeth. Yeah. Blonde, shoulder length hair. He's got A naturally athletic build, but yeah, he is objectively handsome man.

[Henry Zabrowski]

This is. It's a real block. His lawyer talked about it. His lawyer does a whole long thing about, like, he doesn't look how it. Which is why people thought he could just talk to him. But turns out he's heavily R worded. That's literally what he said.

[Marcus Parks]

And for those of you who didn't understand that it was Henry saying R worded in an Australian accent. See, Martin's looks, however, did nothing for his social status. But the thing is, it is kind of a good point because he did not look like he was mentally challenged. He did have. But he did have, like, learning disabilities. And I think he kind of got a pass, like a fair amount because of that, because he was a good looking guy.

[Ed Larson]

Do you think they were learning disabilities or was it just like straight up? I don't feel like doing this.

[Henry Zabrowski]

No, he.

[Marcus Parks]

He had learning. He had definite learning disabilities. Yeah. His looks, however, did nothing for his social status. And as he got older, his confrontational nature only led him to pull bizarre stunts that seemingly had no other purpose but to make other people feel weird.

[Ed Larson]

Weird.

[Marcus Parks]

In one case, Martin showed up to a nighttime beach party that was being thrown by a group of teenagers. All right, these were the same kids who had called Martin names like Silly Martin, Bloody Simple Martin, or Rubber Lips. That last one, that was due to Martin's constant habit of tightly pursing his lips together as if he was always thinking about something he couldn't quite understand.

[Ed Larson]

I like Rubber Lips.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Yeah, Rubber Lips is fun.

[Ed Larson]

I feel like I gotta save that one.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Yeah.

[Marcus Parks]

But on the night of the beach party, Martin showed up with a can of gasoline. And as the other kids watched, Martin doused himself with petrol and lit himself on fire again.

[Henry Zabrowski]

It's like Ingram, the joker comes in and says, you want to see a magic trick? But then he just sets himself on fire.

[Marcus Parks]

The kids tackled Martin and rolled him in the sand before he suffered any serious burns. But Martin didn't seem to care at all about what he done to himself or how disturbed everyone at the party had become as a result of his actions.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Yeah, that's crazy, right? It's fucking blow your mind, right? You like that bit, huh?

[Ed Larson]

I'll show you. Burning man sucked that.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Yeah, dude. Burning Dude.

[Ed Larson]

Oh, man. But the thing is, if they would have just let him burn.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Yeah, everything would have been fine. Yeah. If they were normal stoners and we're just like, man, whoa, that's fucked up, then it would have been done, you know? But I wonder if it's because the last time he got set on fire, he got a lot of attention, and he starts kind of putting them all.

[Ed Larson]

Together, not on the news.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Yep.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah, maybe. I don't know. I. I think he just liked to disturb people. Oh, yeah, he liked it. He liked to fuck with people. And just. He. He. Martin Bryant, loved to fuck up a day that he was very. He was very good at it. Now, Martin's father, to his slight credit, he did try to help his son as much as he could through his depression and alcoholism. And in the process, Maurice Bryant introduced Martin to the only activity he seemed to really enjoy in life besides making other people miserable. Maurice took Martin snorkeling and taught him how to dive for crayfish. Crawfish here in America. Martin loved gathering buckets of mud bugs so much that he decided that this was going to be his career for the rest of his life.

[Henry Zabrowski]

This is mine. This is my life. My pet fishing. I love snails. I love muck.

[Marcus Parks]

Martin, however, did also have a habit of pulling other people's snorkels while they were underwater just because he thought it was funny.

[Henry Zabrowski]

That's just. I mean it, you know, in a way, if he's working, at least. That is kind of funny.

[Ed Larson]

Yeah. Fun is fun.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Daddy, Daddy.

[Ed Larson]

Oi.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Don't you want to take me to do some bugging? Sure.

[Ed Larson]

Let me show you how it's done there, so.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Oh, yeah. Don't touch my goddamn circles. I got you, daddy. You're my favorite, daddy.

[Ed Larson]

I kind of like you.

[Marcus Parks]

But the massive mistake Maurice Bryant made was when he bought his son Martin an air rifle at the age of 14. It was at least powerful enough to kill birds. This is ostensibly so Maurice could teach Martin proper gun handling techniques.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Yeah, definitely the first thing up. You want to teach somebody at 14 who has really aggressive. Some form of antisocial autism. Yeah, it's like, yeah, let's teach him how to use guns quickly. Yeah.

[Ed Larson]

If you're. If your child sets themself on fire twice, maybe don't get him a gun.

[Marcus Parks]

Marksmanship is not his hobby.

[Henry Zabrowski]

You don't want to be golf club, but a golf club, a paintbrush.

[Marcus Parks]

Oh, all water. All water Hobbies. That's why you send them to the crawfish.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Yeah. Snorkeling. Perfect. Can't do. Literally, can't set it on fire.

[Marcus Parks]

The rifles seem to inspire a change in Martin. As it turns out, handing a weapon to an aggressive, unstable teenager, even if it is just an air rifle, is usually a bad idea because all it really does is show them the power of a gun. Where before Brian had been annoying but mostly harmless, the rifle allowed him to be more destructive. He'd hide in a creek near the road and fire his air rifle at passing cars. And he was known to shoot birds out of trees before walking up to the corpses to fire several more shots in their heads.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Hates birds.

[Ed Larson]

Yeah.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Hates birds. Hates freedom. He's also like, I just feel like if you find your son randomly practicing to be the D.C. sniper, you might want to say. You might want to step in there, there.

[Ed Larson]

You know, of all the countries in the world, though, Australia does have extra animals to kill.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Certainly. Certainly you can go after the spiders and birds are the biggest problem in Australia because of how big and scary they are. Yeah.

[Ed Larson]

And he really should have went for the snakes. That's what you do with kids like this, just turn them into snake killers?

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah, strangely enough. Yeah.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Go into the house, kill rats, into the house.

[Marcus Parks]

And then worse comes to worse, he just stays there.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Yeah, yeah.

[Ed Larson]

You know, and then he gets killed.

[Henry Zabrowski]

By a snake or he becomes a big exterminator, and then he gets to kill animals and stuff. But it's his job.

[Ed Larson]

He's in prison, Right?

[Henry Zabrowski]

Yeah.

[Ed Larson]

So we can still do this.

[Marcus Parks]

The change in Martin's behavior to something far darker was noticed by one of the few friends Martin made over the course of his life, a kid named Greg, who'd bonded with Martin over their shared love of diving for crayfish.

[Henry Zabrowski]

You're the only one I know who likes slugs just as much as me, Martin.

[Marcus Parks]

According to Greg, Martin once caught a cat and tried to pull the animal apart with his bare hands before Greg stopped him.

[Henry Zabrowski]

You can't pet him that way. You gotta leave the guts on the inside.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah. More dangerously, though, Greg saw Martin routinely grab the steering wheel when Martin was in the car with his parents. Martin, of course, laughing maniacally as he tried to pull the whole family off the road. Greg put up with Martin for years, but the friendship ended abruptly when Martin stabbed Greg in the head with a spear gun. Gun. No serious damage was done, but Greg punched Martin in the face in response and never spoke to him again.

[Ed Larson]

Old spear gun to the head. Friendship ender.

[Henry Zabrowski]

You know, friend breakups are some of the most devastating things that you can go through, but most of the time, it's over money.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's not over a spear gun to.

[Henry Zabrowski]

The head or your wife or something.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah, something like that.

[Henry Zabrowski]

But he's just getting stabbed in the head with a spear Gun. It seems like it came out of nowhere, especially because they're both in the crawfish industry.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah, he should know to not stab anyone else in there with a spear gun.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Yes, that's.

[Marcus Parks]

What do you even need a spear gun for if you're just getting crawfish?

[Henry Zabrowski]

I missed Fun.

[Ed Larson]

The crocs.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah, but if you're in the ocean.

[Ed Larson]

Saltwater crocs, they're bigger.

[Marcus Parks]

It's true. What would I do without you? Now, by the time Martin Bryant reached high school, his father had done pretty well for himself in the real estate business. But in 1982, Maurice Bryant would make a miscalculation that would inadvertently cause Martin to choose Port Arthur as the site of his massacre. Fourteen years later, S'morese owned a good amount of property in the town of Port Arthur. The Bryants actually owned a vacation cottage there. So Martin was certainly acquainted with the town growing up. In the early 80s, though, Martin Bryant tried buying a bed and breakfast in Port Arthur. Little business called Seascape. But due to circumstance, the property was instead scooped up by a couple named David and Sally Martin. Maurice spent years complaining that David and Sally had stolen Seascape. And he would often say that the loss of the property was what prevented him from reaching the next level as a real estate investor. Martin would listen intently to his father's grievances, and in turn, he held a deep grudge against the people who bought the bed and breakfast, a grudge that matched his father's. That grudge would one day make the Seascape Bed and breakfast the centerpiece of the Port Arthur massacre.

[Henry Zabrowski]

So, daddy, would you say we be, like, fun if I brought hell to them?

[Ed Larson]

I love you, boy.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Yeah. All right. Yeah, Daddy. All right. I think we're about to get along a little bit better.

[Ed Larson]

Maybe I should get you a bigger gun.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Yeah.

[Marcus Parks]

All right.

[Henry Zabrowski]

You know, this is just the plot to. What about Bob, is it? Fuck you.

[Ed Larson]

Dr. Martin.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Dr. Martin scoops it. He scoops the property from the two locals have been waiting for the property to open up the subplot to.

[Marcus Parks]

What about.

[Henry Zabrowski]

You've seen that too many times.

[Ed Larson]

That's the plot.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah, because that is a very, like, low subplot on the totem pole there.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Martin Bryant is Bob Wy. Bob W. Goes, finds Dr. Leo Marvin while he is on vacation. While he's supposed to be on vacation from his problems. Right. He goes out there and then. They also famously did not get along on set. Bill Murray was very rough, too.

[Ed Larson]

Beat him up.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Very similar. Similar.

[Marcus Parks]

Bill Murray used to beat up Richard.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Dreyfus to get in a physical fight.

[Ed Larson]

Yeah.

[Marcus Parks]

Richard Dreyfus said of what about Bob.

[Ed Larson]

Used to complain about it a lot. He said like he like tortured me during that movie. But also Richard Dreyfus was annoying. So like it's no one really stuck up for him.

[Marcus Parks]

I think I understand.

[Ed Larson]

Also I do want to correct myself. I forgot we were in Tasmania. Very it's south. There's the crocs aren't down there. They're only up north.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Great.

[Ed Larson]

So I just really wanted to correct myself before I get yelled at by all the croc fans.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Don't worry. Don't worry about it.

[Ed Larson]

I want these croc people coming after.

[Henry Zabrowski]

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[Marcus Parks]

If you don't know about our flyer deals on Instacart, this message is for you. Flyer deals are like strolling through your favorite Store looking for deals, but instead you're scrolling on your phone. Because getting delivery doesn't mean you have to miss out on in store deals like the creamer that doesn't upset your stomach or the pasta sauce that you can't not buy when it's on sale. Sale. Download the Instacart app, shop flyers and never miss a deal. Plus get delivery in as fast as 30 minutes. Now, when Martin turned 16, he was legally allowed to leave school and get a job on his own. But again, his behavior made it impossible to employ him. And as it turned out, one could not make a living exclusively by diving for crayfish.

[Henry Zabrowski]

I caught five.

[Ed Larson]

Not enough.

[Marcus Parks]

Not enough for rent.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Yeah, A couple more dads got more than that. You have yourself a cocktail. It's also for a scump.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah. So Martin's parents took him to a psychiatrist to have Martin examined for a disability pension. And the psychiatrist had no hesitation in granting it. He deemed Martin completely unemployable because at 16, Martin still couldn't read or write. And the doctor almost diagnosed Martin as a schizophrenic. Before backing off, I saw a little.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Interview with one of Martin Bryant's girlfriends. So he met a girl, One of the girls he saw me dated.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah.

[Henry Zabrowski]

When he was 27. She was 16.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah. We'll talk about her next episode.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Yes. But there was like a time where she said Martin would do this thing where again, he's handsome.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah.

[Henry Zabrowski]

So when she met him, she just thought he was a super, just a dumb, normal guy. And then when he was talking, he would pretend to read. He would do these things where he'd go and he'd get the. He'd get the menu and he'd go, huh? And then he'd order whatever he wanted anyway. Way whatever. Didn't matter what the restaurant was. He'd like look at signs and just go like, we're going this way. And like have no idea what anything read and. But again, she just liked having a decider.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah.

[Henry Zabrowski]

And it's all about that, really.

[Marcus Parks]

Sure, I do that all the time.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Oh, yeah, I can't read.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah. But Maurice Bryant still figured that Martin needed some structure and some discipline. So Maurice forced his son to start a door to door business selling vegetables that the family grew on their hobby farm. And that, not surprisingly, also didn't work out as a career for Martin.

[Henry Zabrowski]

You all want some carrots? Oh, you piece of shit. You want squash? Buy my squash or I won't leave. I'm Lassie by squash Eat my grapes or I'll set fire to your home. Eat my grapes. It's a real aggressive cell.

[Marcus Parks]

By the time Martin was 20 years old, his father was still trying to find something for him to do. So Maurice set Martin up with a job mowing lawns for some of the older people in the neighborhood. This, however, was how Martin fell into an extraordinarily odd relationship with a woman 34 years his senior. A woman named Helen Harvey. Now, Helen Harvey was heir to a prominent gambling company in Australia named Tattersall's Law Lottery. And when her father died in 1961 and left her everything, she began a decades long existence as an eccentric hoarder who wanted for nothing and did nothing.

[Henry Zabrowski]

She lived the dream life.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah.

[Ed Larson]

Don't hoarders want everything?

[Marcus Parks]

Well, they're wanted for nothing, meaning she got anything she wanted.

[Ed Larson]

Gotcha. Gotcha.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Yeah. She had access to millions of dollars.

[Ed Larson]

Millions. She was a hoarder because of that.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah. Gotcha.

[Henry Zabrowski]

You see, it's not just a month. Poor people can be hoarders too, Eddie.

[Marcus Parks]

Oh yeah, the best of them.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Top tier orders. Not really about the money. It's about the drive.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah. Have you ever seen like really rich hoarders? Some of the best episodes of Hoarders are the guys that are like multi millionaires that have like six warehouses full of like wacky.

[Ed Larson]

Oh, that's fun.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Again, it's the dream.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah. Well, Helen was also like Martin Bryant, an extremely unpleasant person. An actual real life crazy cat lady who lived with 40 cats. Cats, 13 dogs and her ailing elderly mother. Besides her mother though, Helen had also been all but abandoned by most of her family by the time she and Martin crossed paths in 1987. So she was just as isolated as he was.

[Henry Zabrowski]

It cannot really be stressed enough how old a lady she is not.

[Marcus Parks]

She's 54.

[Henry Zabrowski]

But when you look at her it's different. It's, it's. Look at Helen Harvey now like, because when I thought, to be honest, I.

[Marcus Parks]

Mean a hoarding 54 is always than.

[Henry Zabrowski]

A Lisa and 54 like in my mind as soon as, because, because of my training I saw my head. Helen Harvey, Lisa an right. Like I just imagined her as like a weird kind of like oh, cuz she's an heiress. I thought maybe she have a lot of plastic surgery and be like a weird kind of like that style of 54 year old lady. She looks like the woman from the book Stone Soup. She is. She was born with a babushka.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Like she is that type. She's got babushka head. And I have no idea how like, these guys coming together is one of the funniest odd couples in true crime history. Yeah, because they're not necessarily fucking.

[Marcus Parks]

Well, no, they're really not. And it's also an. An almost entirely innocent relationship. Strange throughout, like for years. Like just like they're just buddies.

[Ed Larson]

It's kind of like Harold and Maud. It is, yes.

[Marcus Parks]

It's very much like that.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Didn't they sleep together in Harold and isn't there like they're like in love with each other?

[Ed Larson]

I think they banged one.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah. Yeah, but in this story they're just mostly like friends.

[Ed Larson]

Okay.

[Henry Zabrowski]

He said they cuddle sometimes. Hey.

[Ed Larson]

I mean, I wish she was still alive.

[Marcus Parks]

I know. We all do. Well, as far as how they met, Martin was in Helen's neighborhood one day to mow a neighbor's lawn. And he found the short and stout Helen Harvey aimlessly wandering the streets. Martin asked Helen if he could help her out.

[Henry Zabrowski]

If he could help out. Jeez, can you imagine that, Mark? I mean like, you seem. You seem out of sorts. You need some help?

[Ed Larson]

You want some squash to shovel up your ass? Just having fun.

[Marcus Parks]

Help her out by mowing her lawn. Yeah, like not like, hey, wanna help? Can you help me out?

[Henry Zabrowski]

Hey, you wanna help me out?

[Marcus Parks]

Well, Helen, I suppose attracted to this strange handsome boy, agreed. Soon enough, a sort of spark developed between Helen and Martin. But contrary to what you'd expect when a relationship begins burgeoning between a 54 year old eccentric and a borderline mentally challenged 20 year old, Martin's parents thoroughly encouraged this relationship. Martin, they noticed, was calmer when Helen was around. And unlike everyone else on earth, Helen found Martin entertaining rather than irritating.

[Henry Zabrowski]

And that's a big thing for all you out there that are super irritating. Sometimes you just gotta hold out for that aimlessly wandering old woman that will take you and have you. Okay. Cause. And then, and then that's who showed up. And that's who you commit to too.

[Marcus Parks]

As such, Martin's parents were so thrilled that their son had finally latched on to someone else, that they supported the relationship in any way they could. To the point where they eventually began taking Helen on family vacations.

[Ed Larson]

Thought she was rich.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah. But you know, she liked to come along.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Yeah, she was like his Teddy Ruxpin.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah, it's not like they paid for. She just like was there.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Yeah, you know, just, you know, always like having just a random old lady. Just.

[Marcus Parks]

She's 54.

[Henry Zabrowski]

This is. Look at Helen Harvey. Look at her and tell me that it's not the very, very description of an old lady.

[Ed Larson]

Also, they could finally take a vacation by themselves.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Yeah, yeah.

[Marcus Parks]

And I will admit that hoarding does age you. Like if you were a hoarder, it add 15 years to your age.

[Henry Zabrowski]

I agree.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah.

[Ed Larson]

Especially with like just around all the cat piss fumes.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah, yeah. No, it's not good for anybody and it's stressful. But from what it seems like the dynamic between Helen and Martin was that Helen basically treated him like a helpful but rambunctious child. Child barking orders at him that Martin would dutifully follow. And seemingly Martin did what Helen said because Helen was the only person in the world that actually liked him. Because as authors Robert Wainwright and Paola Tutoro put it, Martin was the human equivalent of a stray dog that had wandered into Helen's yard.

[Henry Zabrowski]

She literally was the first person to not just be like you, Martin, I hate you.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah, get the away from me right now.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Yes. Which meant she was also a difficult woman and very difficult and very. And so they got together famously.

[Marcus Parks]

Now, Martin never did much yard work for Helen and as a result her yard became so overgrown and filled with animals that the neighbors complained. The RSPCA intervened and rescued over 50 neglected animals from Helen's house. But they also noticed that both Helen and her 79 year old mother were in terrible shape. See, Helen's home was filled with filth and trash because Helen was a horse. Even worse, it was discovered during the animal rescue that Helen was sick with infected ulcers and her mother had an untreated broken hip. So both women were rushed to the hospital. Helen's mother died there a few weeks later. But Martin stayed at Helen's side and took care of her during her stay. Additionally, Martin and his father cleaned out Helen's home while she was convalescing. And once she was released, Martin moved in with Helen permanently.

[Ed Larson]

So he wasn't living with her yet.

[Marcus Parks]

They had been friends for like three years at this point. Like he just go over there all the time, just hang out with her constantly. But yeah, at this point, yeah, it took about three years before he moved into their house.

[Henry Zabrowski]

He was on. They were, they viewed them, they said they were inseparable and that he would be over there all the time, they would be hanging out because they love doing the same things. They love yelling at the turned off television. They both love wandering the streets aimlessly. They both love, love hoarding animals. And honestly, it's kind of nice.

[Marcus Parks]

Now, once Helen got out of the hospital, she and Martin fell Into a comfortable life. By most accounts, though, the relationship was platonic. Although Martin did say that there was a little kissing, a little hugging, little cuddling.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Sometimes she lets me kiss your bottom chins.

[Ed Larson]

Do you think he was impotent?

[Marcus Parks]

No. No, I don't, unfortunately.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Now I got. I got a ranger. I got a rage Ya, don't you worry I'll try to stick her with my shift Steve Try to get her with my little shovel Tried to push her around But Helen turned out hell grew over Said the hell grew over Spider moved in It's a bunch of wibs. I love my Helen Just nothing but a cocoon.

[Marcus Parks]

Well, neither Martin nor Helen had any concept of money. Infamously, the two of them would go to car dealerships and buy new cars on a whim.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Whoa.

[Marcus Parks]

Because Helen also hoarded cars.

[Ed Larson]

That's awesome.

[Marcus Parks]

By the time of her death, she had bought no less than 50. 50. But Helen usually only kept these cars for a few weeks or a couple of months before trading them in or wrecking them. Because Helen was such a bad driver that she had to take her driver's exam 19 times before she passed it.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Don't they cut you off?

[Ed Larson]

No, it's just.

[Marcus Parks]

She comes again.

[Henry Zabrowski]

She comes. It's time. I'll go. She immediately crawls in the trunk of the car. No, no, no, wrong end.

[Ed Larson]

You to start driving your own car.

[Henry Zabrowski]

All right, all right, I'll get in. The raw area crawls under the hood. Which one is left? Which way do I watch the wheel.

[Marcus Parks]

Now, Helen had such disregard for the value of a dollar that she'd often buy a car at the beginning of the month when the monthly payment from her inheritance trust came in. Then she'd sell the car at the end of the month when she needed cash for food.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Oh, I think she's hustling.

[Marcus Parks]

The problem was that during that month, she and Martin would have spent weeks driving around aimlessly with a car full of filthy animals, constantly urinating and defecating.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Try to get it in the ashtray. Try to get it in the ashtray. Come on now, try to get it. Oh, well, well, all right. You're trying to get in where we keep the change.

[Marcus Parks]

The stench would be so intense, a stench that would develop within weeks. Weeks. That any car Helen traded in had to be fumigated and thoroughly scrubbed.

[Ed Larson]

Which car smelled worse? Theirs or John Bunting?

[Henry Zabrowski]

Oh, I mean John Bunting's. John Bunting's. Because he had the slop. He had human. He had human remains turned into chowder.

[Marcus Parks]

No matter what Decomposition is going to be defecation every time.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Every time.

[Marcus Parks]

For a bad smell, put it on your gravestone.

[Henry Zabrowski]

It's going to be a long gravestone mark.

[Marcus Parks]

Marcus says decomposition beats defecation every time.

[Ed Larson]

You don't believe him? Dig him up.

[Marcus Parks]

Truer words, dig him up. He actually got buried with a box full of shit, so you could compare. Oh, wow. Then someone comes and fills it up every week. That beautiful, strange woman.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Sweet, sweet Helen.

[Marcus Parks]

Now, Helen, of course, had begun rebuilding her menagerie of strays as soon as she got out of the hospital. And the smell and the noise were causing the neighbors to once again complain. So to avoid another visit from the rspca, Helen bought a farm outside of the Tasmanian town of Copping, not too far from Port Arthur. Once Martin and Helen moved onto their new land, they soon acquired three donkeys, nine ponies, three dogs, and an untold number of cats. Cats in addition to 30 Canaries and quite a few budgies.

[Ed Larson]

What's a budgie?

[Marcus Parks]

It's a boudregar. It's like a canary. It's a small bird.

[Ed Larson]

Oh, okay.

[Marcus Parks]

But you remember, I think that bird. Remember, the bird's head fell off and dumb and dumber. Yes, I think that's a budgie.

[Ed Larson]

Okay, great.

[Marcus Parks]

Pretty.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Pretty bird. Pretty bird's heads are falling off.

[Marcus Parks]

But once Martin became and man, this sounds like the dream. Three donkeys and three dogs and three donkeys. I mean, I can. You know, the cats, that's. Let's have like maybe four walking around.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Yeah. No, it's. No, it sounds like a cute life.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah. And nine ponies is too much.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Yeah. Yes. Yeah, for them it is.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah. Just a couple of. Just one horse. One horse, but three donkeys. Sign me up again.

[Henry Zabrowski]

I think you can handle it. I don't know if Martin could.

[Marcus Parks]

No.

[Ed Larson]

Ponies are useless, right?

[Marcus Parks]

No, you can write them. You can ride them. Yeah, you can.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Like.

[Ed Larson]

Yeah, but that's it. You can just, like, you know.

[Henry Zabrowski]

No, you can farm them for their meat. You can get them for their milk. Milk.

[Ed Larson]

I never ate pony.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Yeah, we can have some. I've had horse.

[Ed Larson]

I've had horse.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Horses.

[Ed Larson]

No, it's not.

[Henry Zabrowski]

No. Yeah, I don't really like horse. We're not normally. We're not used to horse. I don't.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah.

[Ed Larson]

Order horse.

[Henry Zabrowski]

No.

[Ed Larson]

Well, I have.

[Marcus Parks]

I have.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Yes, once.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah, I ordered horse once. Yeah, of course. You order horse. Like, we. You didn't go to the supermarket and buy horse.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Eat it. Eat the horse, boy.

[Marcus Parks]

Well, once Martin became more isolated on the Farm. The meager social skills that he developed over the years began to regress. He became more irritable, more erratic, and extremely quick to anger. But since the only person who saw him on a regular basis was Helen, nobody noticed that his behavior was getting darker. But perhaps what was most harmful when it came to Martin's eventual actions was Helen's insistence that Martin be made the exclusive trustee of her estate. She wrote up a new will explicitly forbidding any of her money from going to her blood relatives upon her death. Which meant that when Helen died, Martin Bryant was all set to become a multi millionaire who could pretty much buy and do whatever he wanted.

[Ed Larson]

So crazy. This guy can't read, hasn't passed any school, does no. 0 skills, can't even take care of the yard, is gonna become a millionaire and still still wants to kill everybody.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Want to see this movie? That is Brewster's Millions, directed by David Finch. Like the David Fincher. Like you literally do a thing where you have, like you have to spend all the money. And he's also on a killing spree.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah. But concerning Martin's darkening moods, there were some red flags. A few weeks after Martin and Helen moved to their farm, a neighbor came by for tea. But before the neighbor finished her cuppa, Martin shooed her out the door and told her that if she ever came back, he'd shoot her. Martin also began skulking through his neighbors properties at night, where he would use his trusty air rifle to shoot dogs. But for most of the people in the town of Koffing, Martin and Helen were merely the local eccentric couple. Every day, Martin and Helen would wake up late, then wander the local town aimlessly shopping, eating long lunches and driving around in a continuous stream of new cars filled with animals.

[Henry Zabrowski]

This is all I want to do. Why is this so much? Why is this asking too much? It's all I want for my life.

[Ed Larson]

Yeah, obviously it's not gonna make you happy.

[Henry Zabrowski]

No, but that's just because that's them.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah.

[Henry Zabrowski]

I can maximize it.

[Marcus Parks]

Well, actually, I mean, I don't know. They were happy though.

[Henry Zabrowski]

They were.

[Marcus Parks]

I mean, they drive around with their dogs, their cats. Sometimes they'd stuff a pony in the back seat, which greatly disturbed the locals. As it should. Ponies don't belong in the backseat of.

[Henry Zabrowski]

A sedan unless they're taught to drive or handle the map.

[Ed Larson]

Yeah, you're supposed to time to the hood.

[Henry Zabrowski]

That's the key.

[Marcus Parks]

Naturally, Helen would do all the driving, but Martin had never given up on his old habit of suddenly grabbing the steering wheel to try and make them crash because he thought it was funny. To avoid accidents, Helen started driving slower and slower. But Martin still caused three accidents by jerking the wheel.

[Ed Larson]

You know, when you got a good joke, sometimes you got to let it ride for decades.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Are you talking to me material? Are you talking to me or are you talking to my father? We both have. That's what you have to have. It's called house jokes.

[Ed Larson]

I will say the one time I did this to my dad was the one time he like hit me in the face. And I agree with him still to this.

[Henry Zabrowski]

No, it's a lesson to learn. It's a lesson to learn.

[Marcus Parks]

It was only a matter of time, of course, before Martin's steering mill shenanigans would have real consequences. In October of 1992, Martin and Helen loaded three of their dogs into a brand new Mazda and drove north to do some shopping. Martin later told police that at one point during this drive, Helen had become distracted by the dogs and she let the car drift into the other lane. It's far more likely, however, that Martin reached over and jerked the wheel because according to the person they hit that day, Helen's Mazda very suddenly swerved across the line and crashed into their sedan, head on. Helen's neck snapped upon impact, killing her instantly. In addition to two of the dogs, Martin, meanwhile, suffered a fractured vertebrae while the third dog survived. Ran back to the farm.

[Henry Zabrowski]

If I was that dog, I would have ran the opposite goddamn direction.

[Marcus Parks]

Not back to the farm.

[Henry Zabrowski]

No. God. Good Lord. But this is what we see a lot in these types of accidents. Evidence. Martin lived because he was like. There's something about not being like when they say with drunk drivers.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Like how they always live through the crash because. Well, it's because they're like, bodies are loose and they're not. They don't react, they don't clench the way that's kind of what they say for you to do, you know you're supposed to go loose.

[Ed Larson]

Yeah, you do it.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Yeah, yeah.

[Marcus Parks]

Martin's injuries necessitated a weeks long stay at the hospital and he had to wear a neck brace for months. But without Helen around to manage Martin anymore, his parents were forced to step back into his life in a primary role.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Enforced is the key word. I think partially too. When Helen came in, they were super happy to be like, you got him now. Bye, bye.

[Ed Larson]

They worked their whole life or his whole life for this.

[Marcus Parks]

Well, they sort of vacillated between letting Helen have like complete control. But the other part of it was, is that they found after spending, you know, 20 years taking care of him, there was this weird hole in their lives when they didn't have to take. When they had nothing to do anymore. So they actually started, like, getting back into his life. Like, little. Like, they'd go and have lunch with him. And Helen, his father, like, retired and wanted to spend more time with him. Like, it's almost like they liked the punishment. Well, or it's. Or martyrs. Yeah.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Like real parents. They're martyrs. And so they're. They go through the process because they feel like they have to.

[Ed Larson]

This is why Julie's making me get the Hunchback dog, it's called.

[Marcus Parks]

But it looks really cute, though.

[Ed Larson]

I mean, the dog's definitely cute, and it's going to be a great dog, but, you know, at the same time, it's. You know, it's a hunchback, but, you know, we're getting a bell put in.

[Marcus Parks]

And it's going to be fine.

[Henry Zabrowski]

And then Julie can wear your favorite style of dress. Like what, El. Like what's her name wears in the. In the Hunchback. Yeah.

[Ed Larson]

Yeah.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Oh, yeah.

[Marcus Parks]

Oh, yeah.

[Ed Larson]

Actually, that's kind of nice.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah. Think about it.

[Ed Larson]

All right, I'm in.

[Henry Zabrowski]

And you're the evil monk, always.

[Marcus Parks]

But after the car accident, Martin's demeanor suddenly changed, and this was almost certainly due to the head injury. Where Martin had previously been brooding and solitary, he was now extremely chatty at all times, which increased his annoyance factor tenfold. Martin also regressed intellectually and tried making friends with the neighborhood children by inviting them over to play Nintendo. The kids, however, recognized that Bryant was a scary dude, and they instinctively understood that he was someone to avoid.

[Ed Larson]

Man, imagine sucking so much that kids don't even want to play Nintendo with you in, like, 1989. He's, like, the coolest in the world.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Well, you know what it was they. The One of the affectations he gets. And you see it now, like, when you. Later on when you watch all, like, there's a couple interviews with him. He. It's a girlish titter. It's like everywhere he goes and everything's funny and everything's like a funny bit and everything, which is like, again, when you're married to a comedian, it's great.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah.

[Henry Zabrowski]

But when it's just some guy that doesn't know how to do it, I could see how it gets annoying.

[Ed Larson]

Yeah. You know, we'll all be abandoned at some point.

[Henry Zabrowski]

That's our. That's a comedian's life. Yeah.

[Ed Larson]

You know, but also, you Gotta imagine his house smelled like. Yeah, like it just covered in piss and.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Yeah, I mean, the bar's real low.

[Ed Larson]

Yeah.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah. And that's the thing. Against his father's wishes, Martin returned to the farm where he and Helen had lived. Live so he could make a life by himself. And Martin soon found himself in trouble with the neighbors due to his increasingly erratic and aggressive behavior. In March of 1993, Martin got on a bus and put his hand up a girl's skirt, which got him kicked off by the driver. Martin, however, ran to the next stop ahead of the bus and tried to get back on like nothing had happened.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Oh, he's a Kramer.

[Marcus Parks]

When the driver refused, Martin unleashed a tirade of verbal abuse before hailing a cab. And he then had the cab cab follow the bus while he hung out the window, cursing and shaking his fist at the bus driver.

[Ed Larson]

Cabbies will do anything you ask him to do.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Dude, have you ever done it? I did it one time. I got. No, not a follow that car, but I did a step on it. Me too. Yeah, it was awesome.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah, they do it.

[Henry Zabrowski]

I was like, let's go. That was like back in the yellow cabs. Yeah, Cab drivers have a fun life.

[Ed Larson]

Yeah, man.

[Marcus Parks]

Well, everything with Martin changed in mid-1993 when Helen Harvey's will finally paid out. Martin was now a multimillionaire, although his father made sure that Martin did not have access to all of it at once.

[Henry Zabrowski]

I only wish that he could have had the jerk style lifestyle where you have the white suit, like the tennis courts and all this. Like that's what this, this story really could have went to the best millionaire ever. Like, that's where the story could have ended up and it didn't.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah, and I do wonder how many of those. Those are out there.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Many of them. And they buy whole companies and then become billionaires. And then we all have to pretend like they're geniuses because they just came into the money in the first place. And then they did. They bought some hot air balloon business that all of a sudden takes off and now they're the balloon king of Tulsa or some.

[Marcus Parks]

That's true, man.

[Ed Larson]

Tulsa and their balloons.

[Henry Zabrowski]

I'm sick of Tulsa balloons. Which is why I'm bringing my hand pick needles to Tulsa. Pop the balloons. Take a Tulsa down.

[Marcus Parks]

Using Australia's mental health Act, Maurice Bryant set up a perpetual trust for Martin, which ensured that Martin would receive a monthly stipend instead of a lump sum. This is to make sure that Martin didn't blow all of it immediately. But After Martin's father set up Martin's finances, Maurice Bryant's alcoholism and depression finally caught up to him. Seemingly broken by life, Maurice became sullen and quiet. And In August of 1993, at the age of 64, Maurice buckled a diving belt filled with weights around his neck, took a mix of Valium and antidepressants, and threw himself into a body of water. He had left a note saying only call the police taped to the door of his home, and it took investigators two days to find the body. Martin, however, showed no human emotions whatsoever when told of his father's suicide. Suicide? Martin smiled and joked with the police officers investigating his father's death. And while some thought that Martin didn't understand what had happened, most believed that Martin was being intentionally cruel with his demeanor.

[Ed Larson]

Do you think there's any chance he killed him?

[Marcus Parks]

No, no, no, no.

[Henry Zabrowski]

He. No, he. Let's just say he didn't kill him with his hands. He killed him by being himself.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah, yeah. Well, yeah, he was also just very depressed.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Yeah.

[Marcus Parks]

He said in an alcoholic. Yeah, Lifelong.

[Henry Zabrowski]

He has every reason to be sad.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah, you did have a reason to be sad.

[Ed Larson]

And he just set his son up for life, too.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah.

[Ed Larson]

So he probably just like, fuck it. My job is done.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Well, definitely. It's like, I'm out. Now that he's a multimillionaire and he can do whatever he wants. My. Yeah, my job is over.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah. But in the end, what really mattered most here was that Martin Bryant had, within 10 months, lost the only two people who had ever been able to maintain any semblance of control over his actions. That, of course, would be Helen and his father. See, Martin's mother, Carlene, had a habit of turning a blind eye to Martin's difficulties because she just kind of hoped they would resolve themselves as such. After Maurice's death, Carlene basically abandoned Martin to the farm where Martin and Helen had once lived.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Yeah, she pieced.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah. Now totally isolated, Martin stopped trying to be accepted by people altogether, which was most evidenced by how he began to dress. Now, flush with cash, Martin became partial to gray linen suits paired with lizard skin shoes topped off with a, quote, rakish Panama hat.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Yeah, that's right. Put the rake in the hat. I don't know what it means.

[Marcus Parks]

Martin also began carrying around a briefcase, proudly telling strangers that he had a job that paid $400 a week.

[Henry Zabrowski]

That's not that much money. Funny idea like this has been. Yeah. Quite the businessman. Hey, you like crawfish? Opens up a briefcase.

[Marcus Parks]

Other times, Martin would wear an electric blue suit with flared pants and a ruffled shirt.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Cool.

[Marcus Parks]

But it's just Austin Powers, isn't it?

[Henry Zabrowski]

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, baby.

[Marcus Parks]

In other words, his appearance was objectively amusing. And people began laughing at him almost everywhere he went. Martin's isolation and rage, therefore began to build. And by the end of 1993, Martin Bryant began using Helen Harvey's money to buy an arsenal of guns and ammunition. This, of course, was the first step towards the Port Arthur massacre, which we will cover in full devastating detail next week.

[Ed Larson]

So what happened? Because he dressed like.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah, I mean, it. That was part of, like the beginning of it.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Well, cuz in the end he really thought like, all right, now I'm gonna dress like a big timer. I'm gonna dress like they all do in the movies. And like, which I get. That's what I want to do.

[Ed Larson]

Yeah, I love a stupid shirt.

[Henry Zabrowski]

It's.

[Ed Larson]

It's weird because it's disarming. I actually wear like big, friendly, colorful stuff because I don't want people to be scared of my appearance.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Yes. Mark Bryant at first, though, but he just could not understand what the laughter was. Yeah, he's. And he intentionally took it in the worst way possible.

[Ed Larson]

It's like the first time he ever made people happy. He decided to kill everyone.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Yes. Because he thought that the happy was angry. He didn't. He couldn't tell the difference.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah, he didn't know. But yeah, that's. That's where we're at at the end of this episode. What?

[Henry Zabrowski]

No.

[Marcus Parks]

Oh, you were just wagging. You just. Henry was wagging his finger at me. Just wagging his finger. If you want to see video Henry wagging his finger. A video of Henry wagging his finger at me, go to patreon.com Last podcast on the left where you can watch full video episodes of every episode. We do. You can also watch side stories for free on YouTube. You can also follow us on all the socials at LP on the left. Tik Tok. And Instagram is where you can find us. And of course, come see us on tour.

[Ed Larson]

That's right.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Yeah. We're gonna have a good time. I can't wait to do these live shows. We are gonna have so much fun. I think right now we're in Toronto this weekend. Toronto. And it is there. I'm there for my birthday also, if I believe right before this, check out the LPN Funhouse live on Twitch, Twitch tv, lpntv. And I want you to check out my birthday celebration, which apparently I'm going To be lording over everyone.

[Marcus Parks]

Isn't this going to be going out the day after the fun house?

[Ed Larson]

Watch the replay. Go to the YouTube channel. Last podcast on the left. YouTube channel. Subscribe and all that stuff. Stuff. We're going to be in Toronto on May 3, Atlanta on June 28. And the next night, Henry and I are doing a side story show at Dad's Garage. On June 29, July 12, Salt Lake City. August 8, Charlotte. August 9, Durham. September 20, St. Paul, Minnesota. October 11, Milwaukee, Wisconsin. October 25, Oakland, California. November 29, two days after Thanksgiving, will be in Cleveland. Cleveland. Just cheeseburgers for Thanksgiving?

[Henry Zabrowski]

Yeah. We really got to be careful, man. We gotta watch some of the way we eat. After Detroit, I had to look at my. Take a look at my blood again.

[Ed Larson]

Oh, my God. And December 12th and 13th, both nights were in Portland at Revolution Hall. Also starting on Tuesday on. On May 6, I begin my second leg of the Invasive Species tour. I'm coming to Naples, and then I'm doing Fort Lauderdale improv with Henry and Jackie at the. That's gonna be a side story show. And then we're doing two shows at the Funny Bone the next night after that. And of course, I'm gonna do the weekend in Key West. So come on out if you're around in those spots. If you're on vacation in Naples or Key west, please come hang out with us. The late show in Orlando still has some tickets. The early one sold out. It's gonna be a blast. I can't wait to come back to Florida. I actually truly love it.

[Henry Zabrowski]

He does. And we're gonna have a good time. No matter what you do, we're gonna have a good time. So we'll see you out there. And if not, you won't be there, so I can't do anything to you. But if you are there, I could.

[Marcus Parks]

Do you never do anything to anyone?

[Ed Larson]

Yeah.

[Henry Zabrowski]

No, I make him laugh.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah. Okay.

[Ed Larson]

Maurice. Hell, Maurice.

[Marcus Parks]

Sure.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Hey.

[Ed Larson]

Enough, right? Was it? Absolutely.

[Marcus Parks]

Hey, he kind of helped. Yeah, but he bought him the gun.

[Ed Larson]

He did buy him the gun, but he was stupid. Yeah, but he's the nicest guy in this story.

[Henry Zabrowski]

I think everybody is.

[Marcus Parks]

You know, I. You know, how's about this? Hail donkeys.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Donkeys are neutral.

[Ed Larson]

Yes. Dogs. The dog that survived the crash.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Yes.

[Ed Larson]

I'm gonna hail the dog that survived the crash and went, wee, wee, wee, wee. All.

[D]

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