Bushwalk Australia

He may be a murderous psychopath but one hell of a bushman. I mean 7 years in the scrub is a long time, I could only imagine some of the winters he endured.

In the words of Max Smart......if only he'd used his skills for niceness instead of evil.

It was a propagated myth.

http://www.theherald.com.au/story/15743 ... -murderer/

Theres little good you can say about the bloke other than his present holiday accommodation and the length of his stay.

Pretty good case for the death penalty to be reintroduced I reckon. He's admitted to the crimes (plus more), he shows no remorse and claims he'd do it again....What's the problem?

As for the report in the link above, well, half of it's the bleeding obvious. Of course he'd prefer the luxuries rather than survive on bush tucker alone, but 7 years in a roof is a long time...I'd say he had a few camp outs.

It's the nature of his crime that really condemns him in the public eye...I reckon if rape wasn't involved he would be our next Ned Kelly, who did his own fair share of murdering.

Yeah all I can say is im glad now theres no chance of randomly stumbling across him while out walking

While he most definitely wasn't "living off the land' for seven years, he was wandering around challenging, remote terrain, staying invisible, moving at night, etc. To do that he must have had some pretty impressive bush skills. I doubt he had a gps or pile of topo maps either, so his natural navigation skills must have been pretty impressive, and he would have built up an amazing internal map of that huge region.
I was working as a journo when he was on the run and asked the boss if I could go bush for a week to search for him. I was more than willing to risk the consequences of stumbling on him given how amazing his story was up until that point. The paper wouldn't take the risk, so I didn't get to do it.
Even now that he is in jail, part of me would love to try and meet him some time to discuss his time in the bush. While he is clearly an incredibly flawed human -- the fact that he thanked the judge for ensuring he would never be released is proof he knows that -- there is something incredible about his time on the run. I think there are plenty of people who'd feel the same.

There is nothing romantic or impressive about the bloke. Its a shame he wasnt shot dead.

Travis.

Travis22 wrote:There is nothing romantic or impressive about the bloke. Its a shame he wasnt shot dead.

Travis.

Agree

Travis, yes there is something impressive about the bloke. The fact he stayed on the lamb for 7 years with the full force of the law in pursuit is an impressive feat and if it's NOT considered impressive then I suppose your suggesting our coppers/special forces and whoever else was out there are a rabble of totally incompetent amatuers.

Don't confuse the mans feat with his obviously dysfunctional, insane personality. He's crazy and he knows it.

For the coppers to shoot him dead on sight, well...poor form. He could of shot and killed a few himself but didn't. He deserved a fair trial and now he's had it, as I said earlier, the death penalty would be appropriate.

Fair call Puredingo.

I should have been a little more specific. I think people are / were impressed thinking he was living 'off the land' where as in reality it seems he spent more then his fair share of nights illegally in other peoples houses / huts / holiday homes. The later being far far less impressive.

I have to say tho, re: your comments about him evading the FULL FORCE of the law for 7 years... Just how much man power was used on him over the years. There is no doubt, when his story really became headline news the police stepped up their efforts and before long captured their man.

Did he not shoot a police man in a shootout in the final chapters, were the police not returning fire? Again i should have been more specific but i wouldn't have minded one bit had one of the officers hit their mark there and then and im sure the guys on the receiving end of his shots wouldn't have minded either.

Travis.