The Great New Zealand Robbery

by Scott Bainbridge

  Ray Jennings recalled, ‘All the guys were shaken down, especially the safe-breakers, the ones that they thought Nash might have confided in, but it [the escape] did come as a surprise to a lot of guys.’

  ‘Many of us knew Nash was going to cut loose,’ Leonard Evans reckoned, ‘but we didn’t know exactly when. He was the sort of guy who kept pretty much to himself. We all got swish but we didn’t rat.’

  Johnny Angel agreed. ‘I don’t recall the details, but I heard Nashy got a secret message or something to say, “see you soon” from someone on the outside. That took the heat off, particularly those who really knew what went down with the Waterfront heist. I’m not sure it came to anything. It could have been a red herring.’

  — — —

  Constable Hughes and Detective Constable Brien searched cell number forty-six. The tiny space was cluttered with all kinds of papers, journals and books in disorderly piles around the floor. At the top of the pile were Luxford’s Police Law in New Zealand, Garrow’s Criminal Law and Harle’s Mercantile Law in New Zealand. Tucked inside some of the larger books were screeds of prison-issue foolscap, which appeared to be draft submissions, legal and general, handwritten in pencil. Paragraphs in the law books were underlined with notes scrawled in the margins. In another pile were copies of government-printed New Zealand acts of parliament, including the Crimes Act 1908, the Bankruptcy Act 1908 and the Joint Family Homes Act 1959. Nash’s latest submissions appeared to have been around the fact that, once a man had been punished for an offence, then the property acquired from that offence belonged to him. This had to mean that Nash was planning to argue that if he served out his full sentence then whatever money remained from the robbery or the assets from the proceeds would belong to him. The papers were yellowed and dog-eared suggesting they weren’t recent, and some of the notes stopped mid-sentence. The legal submissions looked to have been started in earnest and then halted suddenly, probably at the time of the bankruptcy hearing in September, when he learned this argument was untenable. It appeared at that point he just gave up.

  It was believed this was when he began planning to escape.

  In addition to the legal books, there were Nash’s study books: French language and course paperwork, plus material relating to his Second Class Steam Engineers’ Ticket, which he was one paper off completing. A number of his watercolour paintings were placed around his cell. Beneath his French papers was a pile of general magazines.

  ‘Got it!’ Brien exclaimed. ‘He’s planning to ring-bolt to France, where he’s going to drive steam trains and moonlight as an artist!’

  ‘With the amount he’s got stashed away, anything’s possible,’ Hughes replied.

  On a shelf, the detectives found a cover torn from a chocolate box with a handwritten number in it: 50123. What, they wondered, was the significance of this? On the wall, there were three Christmas cards tacked together with a drawing pin. The first read: ‘To Trev, with love from Mum and Pop.’ The next read: ‘To Trev, with love from all of us at home, Maria.’ The third was more interesting. It read: ‘Regards and best wishes from Owen.’ Then, beneath that, in brackets: ‘W. S. Carrico’ and on the reverse side of the card: ‘Hope to see you soon, Trev.’

  Was this some kind of signal from an accomplice? Prison censors had not intercepted the card from Carrico, although such a message should have been noted and police alerted.

  — — —

  The number 50123 was followed up. It was the telephone number of a clerk from the Social Security Department, but he had no knowledge of Nash other than reading about him in the paper. The number was also checked against motor vehicle records and found to be attached to a 1950 Austin domiciled in Hawera. The owner couldn’t add anything and confirmed the car was safely parked up in his garage. The number was also the Private Bag number of Mount Eden Prison. There was likely to be a mundane reason for Nash’s writing it down.

  The Modus Operandi group quickly identified the sender of the enigmatic Christmas card as 25-year-old American William Sunseri Carrico. Carrico had worked as a waiter at Hi Diddle Griddle, a kitsch, exotica-themed restaurant in Karangahape Road owned by the flamboyant quasi-American Jim Jennings. It was one of many establishments suspected of selling liquor when they were not licensed to do so. A police raid in late 1957 found Carrico and another staff member serving alcohol, and both were convicted in December that year and fined £4.

  An APB was issued notifying all police to be on the lookout for Carrico, who was likely to be the accomplice of Trevor Nash and might be harbouring him. He was, according to the notice, inclined to dress in contemporary fashions, of medium build and fresh complexion with black hair.

  Harold Cohen was the manager of Hi Diddle Griddle and could not confirm the whereabouts of Carrico. After his arrest, he had quit and was supposedly working somewhere illegally. Carrico had left a forwarding address of 72 West Street, Eden Terrace. This turned out to be a house occupied by Hamish Keith, a young professional art critic employed by the Auckland Art Gallery. Detectives put surveillance on the house in the hope Nash would show his face. Those watching noted ‘a number of comings and goings of people of the Bohemian or arty set’, as they darkly described them. It was news to Hamish Keith CNZM, OBE—now also a renowned author, arts curator, arts consultant and social commentator—that he and his household were under surveillance back then, but he confirms that he knew Carrico.

  Bill Carrico was the stepbrother of my then girlfriend, Judith Wood. I think I only met him once when he came to stay with Judy and me for a week or so. I know he was involved in the jazz scene of the day—Phil Warren, those guys. I know he was mixed up with some of the rougher element but I wouldn’t have thought he was involved in any serious crime. I don’t recall our home being under surveillance, but we certainly didn’t harbour any fugitive. I had heard of Nash but only from the papers.

  ‘I came out to New Zealand with my parents and stepbrothers in August 1955,’ Judy Wood recalls.

  I remember living at the Radnor Flats [on the Waterloo Quadrant; one of many cheap boarding houses in the city] and fell ill, and Bill came and helped me move out of there. He was a very caring soul. He was mixed up in the music scene back then and hung with what I call the ‘night people’. He was into music and frequented a lot of the after-hours gambling dens around Auckland. Back then Auckland was a relatively small place and everyone knew each other’s business. If the police were carrying out an investigation, then they would tend to head out of town, like to Thames to discuss things in fear of the crooks finding out. I will never forgive Jim Jennings for making Bill take the rap for selling the grog under the counter. That conviction in effect made things difficult for Bill when it came to finding other work, and haunted him whenever he tried to leave or return to New Zealand. I was living with Hamish back then in West Street and we always entertained loads of visitors. I do recall the name Trevor Nash, but I never met him and Bill never talked of him, and he certainly did not stay with us. I couldn’t imagine Bill being caught up in a prison escape. When the police came, Bill had already shot through to Australia.

  Brien and Hughes executed a search warrant on the house but found nothing. At the time, Judith told Brien she hadn’t seen Carrico for some time, believing he had returned to California. Brien showed her the Christmas card, and she was confident it wasn’t Bill’s handwriting. The writing on the card was neat and clear to read, whereas Bill’s was untidy and practically illegible.

  The police left, but later that day Judy telephoned Brien to say she did remember meeting an acquaintance of Bill’s by the name of Owen. They had been introduced at the Radnor Flats several years earlier. At the time, Bill told her that Owen was suspected to have stolen some money.

  When this latest development was discussed, Detective Sergeant Anderson recalled he had arrested an Owen Connolly at the Radnor Flats in 1956 and charged him with theft. Enquiries found Connolly had been sentenced to an eighteen-month stretch for false pretences and, when he appe
aled his conviction, he had an extra two years added for his trouble. He was currently serving it out at Waikune Prison near Turangi.

  A handwriting sample from Connolly’s reporting card was compared to the Christmas card and both appeared similar. When they interviewed Connolly in his cell, he admitted the card was from him.

  ‘Do you know William Carrico?’

  ‘Yes, I know Bill. Or I did know him.’

  ‘You’re not in contact with him?’

  ‘No, we fell out.’

  ‘Why was that?’

  Connolly winced. ‘I’d nicked some cash off him. Pissed him off a bit. Can’t blame him, really.’

  ‘So why did you use his name on the card?’

  ‘I kind of liked it. I used it as an alias a few times. I even had “WSC” embossed in gold lettering on my satchel.’

  ‘Do you know Trevor Edward Nash?’

  ‘Yeah, I do. When I started my stretch up at the Big House, Trev was a few cells along from me. We were mates, I suppose. When I got out, I sent him that card for Christmas 1960. I used Bill’s name, ’cause I figured if I used my own the censors wouldn’t let it through.’

  ‘What did you mean when you wrote “Hope to see you soon” to Nash?’

  ‘Nothing. Just that, really. I hoped I’d see him some time. Thought it might cheer him up.’

  ‘Were you aware Nash was planning to escape?’

  ‘No. Didn’t have the foggiest.’

  The only comment Nash ever made about his situation to Connolly was that when he got out the police would never get him for anything.

  Connolly could not have helped Nash break out, as he was re-arrested in January and had been in jail in the central North Island ever since. All his letters were read to see who he associated with and if they could decipher any code or covert instruction to associates, but there was nothing to implicate him in planning the escape. The interviewing detectives decided that Connolly was ‘simple’ and unlikely to have the brains to plan an elaborate escape. He was ruled out.

  William Carrico was another matter. There was a possibility Connolly had acted as middleman between Carrico and Nash, but it seemed unlikely they ever physically crossed paths. Yet police records contain a directive to detain and question Carrico over Nash’s escape that remained in force well into the late 1960s.

  — — —

  Suddenly Trevor Nash was everywhere. The publicity that the police gave to the escape had the desired effect, because the public were fully on the lookout for the fugitive. Over the course of the next few days, police were fielding on average 50 calls per day. Brien and Hughes were required to follow up on every one of these calls, no matter how far-fetched or improbable they were. Practically all ended up being false alarms, but most were well intentioned.

  ‘In 1961, I worked as a projectionist assistant at the Majestic Cinema in Queen Street,’ Russell Peters, who was fifteen years old at the time and had just finished school, recalled.

  One afternoon, Marie, one of the usherettes, came out all in a tizz because she swore Trevor Nash was in the theatre. We were a bit cynical because at that time Nash’s photo was all over the papers. I remember the movie was a gangster film, [The] Scarface Mob, starring Robert Stack, so anything was possible I suppose. Someone rang the police and two detectives arrived. There was great excitement and the detectives discussed whether to barge on in and interrupt, but it would be too dark. I suggested stopping the film and turning the lights on, but we had a pretty full house that afternoon and the manager wasn’t too keen on the idea. They decided to wait around until the movie ended. I distinctly remember one of the detectives standing outside the cinema door checking his pistol. The other detective stood waiting down by the lolly counter. When the picture ended, all the people filed out at once and the detective by the door had to look quickly at everybody walking out. Marie stood by the other detective, and pointed him out. I saw who she thought was Nash and it did look a bit like him but the detective standing with her looked at the other one with the gun and shook his head. We dined out on that one for months.

  — — —

  Within days of the escape, people claimed to have sighted Nash in different parts of Auckland. One woman telephoned police to say Nash had flown out from Whenuapai on the Qantas flight to Fiji on the evening of 3 February. Records were checked and there was indeed a passenger named Nash, but of course it wasn’t Trevor.

  Independently of one another, two moteliers in Ellerslie reported a man seeking accommodation for one week between 5 pm and 5.30 pm on the Friday afternoon after the escape. The man was untidy in appearance and ‘in need of a bath’. He was wearing khaki clothing and did not appear to have a vehicle. Both moteliers turned him away because the British Medical Conference was being held in Auckland that weekend and their establishments were stuffed with doctors. Police did not rule out that this man was Nash.

  An elderly Avondale woman was reading Saturday’s Herald around midday and looked out of her kitchen window and noticed a man resembling the one on the front page of her paper pull up on a motorbike. He hopped into a late-model Ford Prefect and sped off. The next morning he returned and collected the motorbike. She was certain the motorcyclist was Nash and believed the pickup was a planned rendezvous orchestrated by the criminal underworld. Police were despatched and ran the number plates of the motorbike through the system. The young man to whom it was traced was interviewed and said he had gone to pick up his mother’s car and had left his motorbike parked up on the side of the road until the following day, when he got a ride back to collect it. He bore no resemblance whatsoever to Nash.

  On Saturday afternoon, several people reported a strange man acting suspiciously in Waikōwhai Park near the waterfront. One report had the man talking with another and they looked to be hiding something in the wooded area before one of them left. Detective Stonehouse, Sergeant Quinn and a contingent of constables converged on the park and scoured the area. It wasn’t long before they collared Patrick McSweeney, professional safe-breaker. In 1956, McSweeney had been on the suspect list for the Waterfront heist but was ruled out because he had been sent down on a one-month stretch on 27 November 1956 the day before the robbery. Cell-house whispers had McSweeney involved from the outset: he was said to have broken into the Northern Steamship Company building a week before the robbery and stored the gas cylinders down the manhole on the ground floor, making them easily retrievable. At the time of the initial investigation, this theory was given serious consideration but ultimately discounted as unlikely, because the manhole was neither wide nor deep enough to fit all the equipment plus the four gas cylinders.

  Now surrounded by a dozen of Auckland’s finest, McSweeney was jumpy and stated he had been out walking and bird-watching. The only person he had talked with in passing was the caretaker. McSweeney admitted knowing Nash in the Big House, but didn’t know where he was. In a report to the chief detective, Stonehouse was dubious, recording he wouldn’t have been surprised in the slightest if McSweeney knew exactly where Nash was hiding. He recommended McSweeney be closely watched.

  A number of people out walking that afternoon saw police surround McSweeney, prompting Chinese whispers that Nash had been caught red-handed digging up the stolen booty. A dozen people returned with shovels and metal detectors in the hope of finding the remainder of the loot. Nor were these the only rumours circulating about the location of the money. Acting on a tip, Detective Constable Brien and Hughes drove out to South Auckland after they heard Nash was supposed to have buried the money in a hole in the middle of a paddock off Redoubt Road the night after the robbery, and would no doubt now be after it. The caller had overheard two wharfies discussing it and planning to go and find it that night. Brien and Hughes made a search of the area and the layout as described was correct, but there was no one there.

  There were bizarre rumours Nash had hidden the money in Grafton Cemetery. Reports came in that an old vault had been broken open and a woman’s corpse interfered with. Dete
ctive Joe Sheehan of the Consorting Squad was sent out to investigate.

  I spent many a night in Grafton Cemetery watching that coffin. It was a lead coffin and the private parts of the female were exposed. Flesh and blood had been splashed over the exposed area. Anna Hoffmann was the main suspect. She kept a goat tied up in the cemetery. It had fresh cuts to a neck vein.

  Anna Hoffmann regularly featured on the front page of Truth for her scandalous exploits. A practitioner of black magic, her coven of witches held regular ceremonies at full moon in Grafton Gully.

  — — —

  Then, late on Monday afternoon, there was a positive lead. James Archer was an engineer employed by the Colonial Ammunition Company next door to Mount Eden Prison. Around afternoon-tea time on Friday 3 February, Archer had looked outside to check the weather. It was threatening to rain, and as he didn’t particularly want to bike home and get soaked he telephoned his wife to pick him up. On Monday, all the talk was of the escaped prisoner and the likelihood he had scarpered through the property and had possibly been picked up at the end of the driveway. There had been a lot of workers milling about that afternoon, so it was a wonder nobody saw him. Archer didn’t think any more of it, but when he went to collect his bike at 5 pm it wasn’t there. Initially he thought one of his mates was playing a trick on him, but then it dawned on him that the likelihood was that it had been stolen, because the car shed had been left open over the weekend. He wandered over to inform the policemen who were still examining the cut prison fence.

  Nash hadn’t been picked up by an accomplice in a waiting car, after all. He had climbed through the hole and run across to the shed, spotted the bicycle and ridden off on it. The car shed where the bike was stored was 10 yards (9 metres) from the prison fence.

  Shortly after police learned of this, another lead came in. Colin Harper had gone around to his sister’s house at 166 Dominion Road to check it. Earlier that year, May Ingram was committed to an asylum; it was uncertain whether she would return and her house remained empty. A number of people apparently knew the house was empty, because Harper regularly had to carry out repairs after break-ins by neighbourhood kids. On 11 February, Harper noticed a bicycle parked along the side of the house and found the door unlocked. There were remnants of discarded food in a rubbish bin, the bed looked to have been slept in but otherwise it was tidy. Police were called and it was ascertained that the bike was indeed James Archer’s stolen bicycle.