Martin Bryant- the World’s Worst Spree Killer
Martin Bryant was born on May 7th 1967, to Carleen and Maurice Bryant. They lived in Tasmania, a large island that is located below, and is part of, Australia. His dad took an early retirement from his job as a dockworker to look after Martin, so concerned were his parents about his unusual disposition. He was diagnosed as being below average in intelligence in primary school and Martin Bryant was placed in special education classes. He exhibited an odd detachment from the rest of society. He barely flinched when his father’s body was found in the water below a dam on their property, the victim of what was termed a suicide. Some suspect Martin Bryant knew more about the tragedy than he let on.
He was picked on by other children because of how he was, and his bizarre behavior continued. He would destroy neighbor’s gardens, throw rocks at children, cut down trees, and untie boats from the docks. Martin Bryant received a pension due to his handicapped status, and when he left school he did not need to find a job. However, he befriended an eccentric heiress named Helen Harvey, and she hired Martin Bryant as a handyman. Their strange relationship, which saw her spend oodles of money on Martin and allow him free reign of her mansion, ended when she was killed in an automobile accident, in which it was suspected that Martin Bryant may have played a part as well. He was cleared of any wrongdoing and to make matters even more peculiar, he was named the sole beneficiary of the wealthy woman’s estate.
Martin Bryant moved into the mansion, located in Hobart, and his behavior became quite out of the ordinary. He traveled extensively overseas, made few friends, wore ridiculous outfits, and was unable to interact with woman in an appropriate manner. He hired prostitutes to visit him at his home, and many of them found him too weird to even return to it. Martin Bryant began to make several visits to Port Arthur, a Tasmanian tourist site that had once housed one of Australia’s most notorious penal colonies. A shopkeeper there recalled Martin buying a sports bag, after he had measured a number of them. What he could not have known at the time was what Martin Bryant would carry in the bag in the near future.
On April 28th, 1996, Martin Bryant walked into the Broad Arrow Caf�© in Port Arthur. It was a busy Sunday, with tourists everywhere. Bryant remarked that there seemed to be a lot of wasps about as he ate his meal on the balcony area, and then he walked back in and went to the back of the caf�©. He had with him his blue sports bag, and he stood there for several minutes staring at various diners. Martin Bryant then reached into the bag and produced an AR15 semi-automatic rifle and began to shoot people, seemingly at random.
Bryant shot women and children, husbands and wives. He did not discriminate when it came to his victims. Confusion and terror reigned as he strode through the caf�© opening fire at anyone he chose. In all, Martin Bryant killed twenty people in the caf�© and wounded several others. He then came out and into the parking lot, where tourists were running about in a state of bewilderment, not knowing what was happening. Bryant shot people as they fled before him and then focused his gun on three passengers and the driver of a tour bus, killing them all. He then knelt down to murder those that had hidden under the vehicle. He calmly got into his yellow Volvo sedan and drove down the road, stopping to mercilessly slaughter a mother and her two children. He killed the three male occupants of a BMW that was further down the road and jumped into the car, taking with him the arsenal of guns he had brought for this deadly spree. When he came upon a Toyota with a man and woman inside, Martin Bryant stopped the BMW and made the man get into the trunk. He then killed the woman with a pair of shots and drove away with his hostage.
Bryant’s destination was a guesthouse called the Seascape Cottage, where he had earlier, unbeknownst to the police that soon cornered him there, had killed the owners. He took some shots at passing cars, wounding more individuals, until he finally reached the cottage. As police closed in on him, he shot at them and then set the BMW on fire. In what would become the largest single police action in Australian history, Martin Bryant was soon surrounded with no way out. The police thought he had at least three hostages, but in truth he had killed the man he had locked in the trunk, and the cottage owners were long since slain. After a long standoff, Martin Bryant set the place on fire in an attempt to escape. However, his own clothes caught fire and he was arrested as he ran screaming from the burning building.
Bryant was found fit to stand trial and was quickly found guilty of the murders of thirty five people. Witnesses told how he was laughing the entire time that he was shooting. Indeed, Martin Bryant was seen laughing and grinning often during the court proceedings against him. He now resides under protective custody in Hobart’s Risdon Prison, where he will spend the rest of his life. Martin Bryant’s own mother told a reporter that she wished her son had died during the shootings. When police, in an interview right after the killings, had asked Martin Bryant why he did what he did, he could only reply, “I’d really love to help you out, but I can’t.”
